Challenging Fate
by SilvorMoon
Summary: When it comes to gods, some are more impressive than others. All Cerulean ever does is sleep. Epinard is better than forgiving than fighting. And Scarlet, well... no one is really sure what he does. But when he goes missing, all the gods will have to work together to find him, because it turns out there are secrets about the universe even the gods don't know.
1. New Year's Dream

Snow was falling on the palace of the gods. Kinshiro nestled more comfortably under the blankets, savoring the warmth and comfort of the room. A fire was burning low in the fireplace, and Atsushi had his arms around his husband's waist, his breath a gentle caress against Kinshiro's neck.

"Do we really have to go to a party tonight?" asked Kinshiro, without much hope.

"We really do," said Atsushi.

Kinshiro sighed. He was supposed to be the god of order and justice - absolutely incorruptible, immune to all forms of flattery, bribery, and persuasion. He should not have been moved by his husband's gentle prompting, so why was it that all it took was for Atsushi to smile at him for him to knuckle under? It really wasn't fair.

The party was for the Winter Solstice. Among humanity, it was traditional for the longest night of the year to be celebrated by an all-night party. Everyone would spend the hours from sundown to sunrise feasting, dancing, telling stories, playing games, and exchanging gifts with their friends and neighbors. As below, so above: tonight the gods would be celebrating and gift-giving as well. It was also traditional, at least among humankind, to take a long nap in the afternoon, to make sure they would have the stamina for an all-night party. With most of humanity asleep, the gods usually took a well-deserved rest as well. Traditionalist that he was, Kinshiro had lain down for a nap himself, but snuggling up to his husband on Atsushi's warm, soft bed had somehow ended up resulting in something other than sleep. The thought of interrupting this rare span of time with his beloved didn't please him.

"We don't have to," he said. "It's only a party. They don't need us."

"They'll miss us, though," Atsushi said persuasively. "Come on. You only think you don't like parties. You always wind up having a good time once you get there. Besides, how are you going to get your presents if you don't go?"

"They can bring my presents here if they want to. They've done it before," said Kinshiro.

He felt the vibration of Atsushi's chuckle. "Is that what you want?"

Kinshiro did not answer, but he did think about it seriously. If he went to the party tonight, then tomorrow would be a holiday, absolutely free of responsibility. He could spend it relaxing in front of a roaring fire, tucked up under a warm blanket with Atsushi at his side, sipping warm drinks, eating their way through the boxes of treats their friends would have given them, and generally taking advantage of having a day with no responsibilities. If he didn't go to this party, though, his friends would be turning up on his doorstep all day long to drop off their gifts, and he'd be spending his holiday answering the door instead of enjoying one of his few days off.

"Besides," said Atsushi, "this is Arima's first Solstice with us. He'll be disappointed if you don't even bother to show up. You don't want to disappoint him, do you?"

"I suppose not," said Kinshiro.

"I knew you wouldn't," said Atsushi, with so much genuine warmth that Kinshiro couldn't manage to be annoyed with him. Atsushi propped himself up enough that he could place a quick peck on his cheek. "Now, shoo. I want to get dressed."

He slid out of the bed, and Kinshiro shifted to take advantage of the warm patch he'd left behind. He watched as Atsushi crossed the room to pull on the clothes he'd selected to wear to the party. It was not unlike watching a sunset: pleasing to look at, but the end result was somewhat less spectacular than the process.

Dear Atsushi. Did he have any idea how much his presence in Kinshiro's life had changed things? No, probably not, and even if someone told him, he probably wouldn't believe it. Before he'd come along, Winter Solstice and the first day of the year had been only another day, different from any other only in that Kinshiro could get some work done in peace and quiet. He hadn't spent much time going to parties. Then he'd gotten married, and it had seemed absurd and unfair to ask Atsushi to stay home when a party was going on, particularly when it would be the first time Atsushi had ever even had the opportunity to go to a Solstice party in the Heavenly City. It had seemed equally unkind to make him go alone, so they had gone together. Then, of course, the next year, Atsushi had seen no reason not to go again. That had been decades ago, and they hadn't missed a single one since. Kinshiro felt a sense of resignation come over him as he thought about it. It wasn't like him to change a habit on a whim, once he'd established it.

With some reluctance, he crawled out of his warm bed and went to pull on his own party clothes. Behind him, he heard Atsushi calling words of encouragement. He smiled a little. Maybe Atsushi was right, after all. He might have fun at a party. How often did he just sit down to enjoy himself with his friends? He had few enough of them; he supposed it behooved him to take some time to appreciate them once in a while.

By the time those friends came knocking on his door, he had managed to almost convince himself that this had been all his own idea.

"I'll get it!" Atsushi called, hurrying to open the door. Kinshiro hastily fastened his belt and tugged his collar a little straighter. He didn't want to make a bad impression on his guests, particularly when one of those guests was likely to be the god of beauty himself. In light of the occasion, Kinshiro had eschewed his usual sober garb for something a little more festive - robes of the sort the other gods tended to favor, deep black but spangled with gold trim and ornaments, with a few pieces of simple gold jewelry. Satisfied with his reflection, he went to greet his guests.

Unsurprisingly, Atsushi was making them all feel at home. His original designation had been the god of mercy, but as his power set had developed he'd found a secondary niche for himself as the god of hospitality. Now he was in the process of welcoming his various friends into the room and gathering up the gifts they'd brought with them. Foremost among these guests was their old friend Arima, newly come to the Heavenly City. This would be his first Solstice among them, and he seemed excited, in his own quiet way, to be part of the festivities. Accompanying him were a lively trio - Ryuu, Io, and Akoya, all clearly excited to be together. Akoya was, among other things, the god of spring, which meant that his powers tended to wax and wane throughout the year. Starting sometime around the vernal equinox, he began growing weak and drowsy, and spent most of the time he wasn't working hiding in the underworld, dozing in front of a fire and refusing to venture forth unless it was absolutely necessary. Tonight, though, would be the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one, and that gave him a resurgence of energy. Now he was energized and prepared to celebrate with the rest of them.

"There you are," said Ryuu, flashing Kinshiro a grin. "I didn't think you were the type to be fashionably late."

Atsushi smiled. "Blame it on me for distracting him. Anyway, tonight is a night for all of us to relax, right? It's okay for even him to be late, once in a while."

"Speaking of late," said Arima, "where is Cerulean? I expected him to join us."

"Oh, he's never here on Solstice," said Ryuu casually. "Tonight's his night off."

Arima looked amused. "Isn't every night his night off?"

"If he could get away with it, it would be," said Io, "but tonight is his _particular_ night off."

"I don't quite understand," said Arima. "Let me in on the joke."

Atsushi took pity on him. "Well, think about it. The tradition is that everyone stays up all night to wait for the morning of the new year, right? And that means everyone sleeps all afternoon. So the _other_ tradition is that your dreams that afternoon are harbingers of your year to come. That means _everyone_ expects to have a portentous dream today, and the person responsible for all those dreams is..."

"Ah! Say no more," said Arima, his face clearing. "So Cerulean was actually expected to put in a full day's work today, and now he is exhausted."

"You got it!" said Ryuu. "So he's taking the night off. He'll be around tomorrow to collect his presents and groan about how overworked he is."

"He isn't the only one," Io remarked. "There's always so much more work in winter. People freeze, people's houses catch fire, people run out of food, people get sick..."

Akoya laid a hand on his shoulder. "It will be spring soon, I promise."

"The sooner, the better!" said Ryuu fervently. Once the weather began to warm up again, Akoya would leave the underworld behind for a while and move back into his quarters in the Palace of the Gods - quarters that were conveniently connected to Ryuu's.

"Well, that's what we're celebrating tonight, right? That spring is coming?" said Atsushi. "Come on, let's go before people start wondering where we are."

Kinshiro had to smile a little. All these years, and Atsushi could still get excited over something like this.

"Yes, let's go," he said. "The sooner we put in an appearance, the sooner we can leave."

They started walking towards the feast hall in a chattering, laughing group. Ryuu, Io, and Akoya had a lot of catching up to do after their long separation, Arima was visibly excited at experiencing a new celebration from the divine perspective, and Atsushi was just happy to be among his friends and on his way to a party. Everyone was in such high spirits that Kinshiro found himself relaxing in spite of himself. Atsushi was right, as usual. He was probably going to have fun.

"Hey," said Atsushi suddenly, "can we take a detour? I just remembered, I left your present in En's room where you wouldn't find it."

Kinshiro was mildly offended. "You know I wouldn't peek at a present before it was time to open it."

"I know, I know!" said Atsushi, laughing, "but it's the principle of the thing. Besides, this way I wasn't tempted to cave in and show you early."

Kinshiro allowed himself to be mollified. If there was something Atsushi was really excited about, he probably _would_ have succumbed to temptation to show it off.

"All right," he said, "but make it quick. If he can't be bothered to come to the party, he can't be bothered to socialize all night."

"I don't think you need to worry," said Atsushi, smiling. "He probably won't even come to the door. He said something about spending the evening in the bathtub, contemplating the secrets of the universe."

Ryuu laughed. "That definitely sounds like an En sort of thing to do."

They reached the door to En's room, and Atsushi knocked briskly on it before opening it.

"Hey, En?" he called. "It's me. I'm just going to come pick up that box..."

He took a few steps into the dimly lit room. Everyone else clustered around to peer through the doorway. Other than Atsushi's presence, there was no sign of movement or life anywhere. Atsushi took a few cautious steps, gradually fading into the darkness. Kinshiro waited, feeling vaguely uneasy. What was he worrying about? It wasn't as though Atsushi had anything to fear from En. The two of them had become good friends even before Atsushi had ascended to godhood. It wasn't as though there was anything En could do to hurt anybody. His primary skill was making people fall asleep, and that was no danger at all in a room where virtually everything was designed to be used by a man who might decide to lie down for a nap at any time, anywhere. Still, it was unlike En not to answer when Atsushi called him...

A moment later, Atsushi came out of the room, carrying a box and looking vaguely puzzled.

"Is everything all right?" Kinshiro asked.

"I don't know," said Atsushi. "En isn't here."

* * *

It was the coldest, darkest, longest night of the year, and no one should have been out in it. Nevertheless, a lone figure trudged wearily through the forest. He was hardly dressed for the weather. He wore only sandals on his feet, and his only coverings were a loose shirt and trousers covered by a light robe. The path he followed was little more than a game trail, a winding ribbon of white snow in the black forest, occasionally crossed by animal tracks. A lean gray wolf watched from the shadows, eyes glinting as it watched the man pass. Other than that, he saw no sign of life, only the dark, looming pine trees and the occasional patch of brush. The only sounds were the crunch of his own footsteps and the occasions swish and patter of snow sliding off a branch. As he passed beneath one such branch, a small avalanche sluiced down to spatter on his head and shoulders. He made a noise of frustration.

"Every... year!" he ground out. "Every...single...year. Why can't they settle somewhere civilized, for once?"

En brushed at the snow, trying to shake it off. Melting snow trickled down his neck and under his clothes. He scowled. The cold may not have been able to actually harm him - he could have danced naked in a blizzard at the north pole without taking any damage except to his pride, but that didn't mean he _liked_ being cold and wet. He liked it even less when he knew it was all preventable.

Still, there was hope. Just up ahead, he could see a faint glimmer that didn't look like moon or starlight. With a sigh of relief, he picked up his pace, moving at a jog that would have astonished his friends, who had never seen him moving at anything faster than an amble. He forced his way past overhanging branches, collecting more snow in the process, but now his goal was in sight. In a little clearing just up ahead, there stood a spacious building. It looked very old, because it was. It also looked well-cared for and well-loved, which was also true. The windows were brightly lit, and a banner over the door announced to anyone who might be passing through a thick forest on a snowy winter's night that this was the Kurotama Bathhouse.

"Finally," said En, with a sigh of relief.

He broke out of the forest and into the clearing, then paused long enough to make an effort at pulling himself together. He didn't usually worry much about his appearance, but there were times when some respect was called for. He fumbled around in the dark for a bit, brushing pine needles off his soggy clothing and trying to smooth his hair into some sort of order before giving it up as a futile task. If the lords of all creation wanted to live in a bathhouse, they would just have to put up with a few a few visitors who needed a bath. En marched up the stairs and went in.

He was immediately met by a blast of welcome warmth. The moist heat of the hot spring mingled with the warmth radiated by the braziers set around the perimeter of the changing area, so that any customers who wandered by wouldn't freeze while they were removing their clothes and preparing to get into the bath. Sprawled on the floor in front of one of these, warming his furry belly, was a chubby pink creature. En smiled and bent to pat him.

"Hiya, Wombat," he said. "How's life?"

Wombat stirred from his doze. "Hmm? Oh, it's you again. Go on back - the other two are waiting for you."

"Thanks," said En, smiling a little. He could appreciate the desire to nap by the fire on a night like tonight. "Guess I'd better get back there, then. Sorry I can't stay and chat."

"Another time," Wombat said, and turned over to warm his back.

En ambled towards the back of the building, mulling over the mystery that was the Wombat. He was one of the oldest creatures in the universe, older than En, older even than Aurite. He'd been around since the dawn of creation. En didn't envy him for it. An eternity of being cuddled by Chance was hard to contemplate. Fate had mentioned, once, that there was a land far away with its own pantheon and its own gods, where there were many other such furry creatures, even if they weren't pink. En sometimes wondered if in that country, Wombat was a sort of god himself, ruling over the lesser wombats, but he'd never bothered to ask. There weren't a lot of mysteries in the life of a god, and En wasn't about to ruin one of the few he had.

At the back of the building stood the tubs of steaming water, awaiting any patrons who wanted a nice long soak. That was how it was most of the year. Sometimes there would even be customers there, when Chance and Fate were feeling sociable and wanted to play at being normal bathhouse owners. Tonight, though, there was no one there but the proprietors themselves, and all the tubs save one had been drained. Gora sat on the edge of the tub, peering thoughtfully into the water, while Yumoto paced the floor with the air of someone awaiting a treat. He was the first to look up and notice En. He beamed.

"Hey, you made it!" he enthused, bounding over to his side.

"I make it every year, don't I?" En replied. "Even when you guys decide to hide out in the middle of nowhere."

Gora looked up and smiled. "You know we have to do it. At least we made an exception for you so you can find us when you need to."

"And I'm grateful for anything that saves me the effort," said En fervently. The last thing he wanted was to spend weeks trudging around in the snow trying to figure out where the bathhouse had moved to _this_ time.

Gora grinned. "So, ready for your bath?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," En agreed.

Gora slid off the edge of the bath and held out his hand to accept En's robe. "Water's waiting for you, then."

En nodded and began shedding his clothing. The water in the tub splashed gently as he approached it, spinning slowly under its own power. Was it even water? En was never really sure. Maybe it was something else, some primordial soup that could only be found in a place like this. It was dark as the night sky and swirled with starry lights, and En had never quite been able to decide if it was scalding hot or freezing cold. Still, if he wanted to keep doing what he did for another year, he was going to have to get in. He dipped a toe in and grimaced.

"This never gets any easier," he muttered.

"That's the price you pay for getting to sleep the rest of the year," said Gora good-humoredly. "Go on. We'll have dinner and a warm fire waiting for you when you get back."

"I'll hold you to it," said En, and plunged beneath the surface.

* * *

In the beginning, there was Chaos - no thought, no form, only purposeless creation and unchecked destruction. Whole galaxies came into being and winked out again in an instant. The universe seethed and churned without plan or purpose.

Then, out of this chaos came something living. Other living things had been created before, but none of them had lasted more than a few seconds in their constantly changing environment. This one, however, always seemed to be in the right place at the right time to avoid being destroyed. He lived long enough to become aware of himself as a _self_ , something separate from the rest of the whirling universe. He gave himself a name, and the name he chose was Yumoto.

For a while, Yumoto simply amused himself by wandering around the universe, hopping from one patch of unstable ground to the next. Here and there, he paused to let a comet pass by on its way to oblivion, or watch a mountain suddenly rise up out of the sea and explode into a flock of birds. He was just pausing by the side of a paper river, watching a flock of square circles tumble by, when something new caught his attention. A short distance down the river, picking its way nervously over the unstable landscape, was a furry four-footed beast. Yumoto stared at it, fascinated. He'd never seen anything so fluffy and pink before. With a cry of delight, he sprinted towards the creature and tackled it, burying his face in its warm fur. The creature squirmed and tried to escape, but Yumoto barely noticed. This was the most wonderful thing that had happened to him in all his short existence, and he was in transports of joy.

And at that moment, the Chaos... stopped.

No one in the universe had ever been happy before. No one had ever survived long enough to _be_ happy. Now Chaos paused to watch Yumoto cuddling his new friend, and the smile on his face was enough to inspire strange new thoughts in something that had never had thoughts before. What the Chaos thought was, _This can't be destroyed. Everything else may go, but this must remain._

In that moment, the universe changed forever. In the beginning, there had been only Chaos. In that instant, Chaos become something new: it became Fate.

* * *

En emerged from the water that wasn't quite water with a gasp. He was shivering all over, and for a moment, he couldn't make his eyes focus on his surroundings. Underneath that strange liquid, he had forgotten that he had a body, slipping back into that state of pure energy and potential that was the true nature of all gods. It was hard to remember how to see things from a limited point of view again, hard to remember that he needed to move his arms and legs if he wanted to get anywhere. He was still flailing about blindly when Yumoto and Gora reached for him and helped to drag him out of the tub. While Gora helped to steady him on his feet, Yumoto fetched a robe that had been warming in front of the fire and began tucking it around him.

"Thanks," said En. "That was _really_ not fun."

"But it works," said Gora. "You're all set for the next year."

"I had better be," En muttered, "or this was a wasted trip."

Yumoto patted him reassuringly on the back. "It's all over now. And now we can have dinner!"

Gora smiled. "The moment we've all been waiting for. You go ahead and take En to the kitchen, and I'll drain the tub."

"Why can't I ever drain the tub?" Yumoto asked. "You never let me help."

"It's something only I can do," said Gora gently. "Go on. This won't take long."

He made a shooing motion. Yumoto, never one to be bad-tempered for long, seized on En's hand and began dragging him towards the kitchen.

"Come on!" he said. "We made sure to get all your favorites. There's curry and onsen manju and rice cakes and..."

He prattled on happily, but En wasn't listening particularly. He had glanced back over his shoulder to watch Gora leaning over the tub to begin draining whatever starry substance it contained. At moments like this, fresh out of his ritual bath, that he had the sense that he _almost_ understood it all - everything from the reason why gods existed at all on down to why Chance and Fate had decided to set up shop in a bathhouse. Then Yumoto tugged his arm again, and he let those thoughts slide away in favor of concentrating on the lovely smells coming from the direction of the kitchen. The nice thing about being friendly with the man who'd created the universe was that he'd also created food, and he knew what it was supposed to taste like. Even the most humble dishes tasted divine if Gora made them. Deep thoughts could wait for another day. For now, En had done his duty and he didn't have to undergo any more uncomfortable rituals for another year. As far as he was concerned, that was something to celebrate.

* * *

Pineridge had never been much of a kingdom. It was little more than a narrow little strip of land, wedged between a river and a the mountains that gave it its name. The ground was too thin and rocky for very much farming, and the trees that grew there were mainly crooked scrub pines with soft, knotty wood. There was a little bit of mining, a little bit of trapping, a little bit of trade along the riverbank, but nothing much that would make a person want to spend much time there.

Unless, perhaps, you happened to be a wizard. Kou Kinosaki believed that there was a lot of potential in Pineridge, if he came at it the right way. He'd come into his gifts at an early age, and had worked out fairly quickly that the best place for a young and rather unprepossessing wizard was someplace out of the way where there was no competition, and where, more importantly, no one was really going to take him seriously. As soon as he'd gotten himself certified as a genuine magical practitioner, he'd set out for Pineridge and the royal palace, where he'd promptly pulled a few rabbits out of hats and turned a few handkerchiefs into doves and gotten himself appointed Royal Wizard to the Crown.

They _did_ have a crown in Pineridge. It was only gold plate over copper, and the gems were only garnets rather than the rubies they pretended to be, but it was still a crown. It belonged to the king, a tall, bony man with a long nose and drooping eyelids who spent most of his time dozing on his throne waiting for something to happen. He'd been rather pleased to have a magician turn up to amuse him with a few tricks once in a while. He had several children and several more grandchildren, all of whom got along with each other reasonably well. There wasn't much competition for who would inherit the throne - most of them were determined to marry outside the kingdom and set up housekeeping anywhere that wasn't as deathly dull as Pineridge. It was generally agreed, with greater or lesser degrees of acceptance, that sooner or later someone would marry into the family of one of the neighboring kingdoms, and Pineridge would be quietly absorbed into someone else's holdings. Within a generation or two, it probably wouldn't be anything but a memory.

Unless, of course, Kou had something to say about it.

Now he moved slowly through the castle's main hall, using his magic to raise garlands to their hooks high on the walls and light a few extra lanterns that hung from the ceiling beams. Hanging up decorations was the sort of thing the helpful, jolly wizard he tried to be would do. He had to admit, the overall effect was rather pleasing.

 _Someday, when I'm in charge, I will have to think about having some more decorations brought in to hang all year 'round. This place is really quite attractive, when cleaned up properly._

Still, that could wait a little longer. He had made up his mind that he wasn't going to make his move until after Winter Solstice. A few more hours wasn't too long to wait.

"Hey, there you are!" called a voice. "I've been looking all over for you."

Kou turned and flashed a smile at the lanky young man who was ambling towards him. Tazawa was the youngest son of the youngest son of the king, which put him dead last when it came to being in line for the throne. Naturally, Kou had attached himself to the young man. People would be suspicious if he had suddenly become the close confidant to the putative heir, but people were less suspicious about him hanging around with someone who stood practically no chance of ever assuming a position of power. Besides, the two of them were of roughly the same age in a court where there were not a lot of young people around, so it was natural for them to gravitate towards each other. Actually, as it turned out, Kou had ended up genuinely liking him. Tazawa was a quiet, soft-spoken man who watched a great deal and said very little, and was probably more intelligent than he acted. He felt awkward and out of place among his rough-and-tumble siblings, and tended to be overlooked in the general hustle and bustle. Kou could empathize.

"Just making myself useful," he said brightly.

"Can I help?" Tazawa asked.

Kou nodded towards a pile of pine boughs - never in short supply around here. "You can tie some more of those together for centerpieces." He gestured at a few nearby tables that had already been decorated with wreaths of pine and holly berries. "I have to hang up the garlands."

"You could make better garlands," Tazawa remarked, obligingly picking up a ball of string and starting towards the wreath material.

"I could," Kou agreed, "but I'm saving all my energy for the party tonight. Your grandfather wants fireworks, and I intend to outdo myself."

Tazawa didn't say anything - he rarely did, when nothing needed to be said - but he did smile widely. He was immensely fond of fireworks.

The two of them worked side by side for some time, Kou chattering to his friend about what had been going on in the court that day, Tazawa a silent and attentive listener. By the time the bell rang to remind everyone it was time for a break, every table had its centerpiece and every wall and roof beam was strung with yards of garland and ribbon. The whole room smelled of fir and balsam.

"We've done good work," Kou said, as the two of them left the hall. They made their way through a smaller corridor, dodging around various servants trying to finish the last little bits of work for the day, and made their way towards their rooms. Tazawa had originally had a room in another part of the castle, but Kou had enough pull in court that he'd been able to insinuate that even a lesser prince deserved better than to bunk down with the common soldiers, and so he'd been moved into the suite next to Kou's own rooms. Before the sun had gone down that day, Kou had put in a hidden door behind his bookcase, so the two of them could visit whenever they pleased. It was a neat arrangement.

Kou walked Tazawa to his door and left him with a sunny smile and a "Sleep well. I'll see you at the party."

Then he ducked into his own rooms. For a moment, the sight that greeted his eyes was that of an austere cell: a narrow bed with a gray blanket thrown over it, a desk covered in papers, a single wooden shelf full of arcane books, a dusty crystal ball, a stuffed alligator hanging from hooks on the ceiling. The only decoration on the walls was a faded star chart, the only floor covering a few chalked diagrams. It was, in short, what people expected to see in the room of a minor wizard in a cash-poor kingdom. Only Kou and Tazawa ever saw more than that. Kou smiled and waved a hand, banishing the illusion.

Instantly, the whole room shifted. Now the bed was a handsome canopy bed hung with green velvet curtains. The desk became larger and more polished, fitted out with convenient drawers and cubbyholes for all his papers and equipment. The shelves multiplied, spanning most of two walls, all of them stuffed with books, crystals, and various arcane instruments. The floor was covered with several soft rugs patterned with green and gold ivy trellises. The alligator disappeared entirely. Who had ever needed a stuffed alligator for anything?

Kou smiled, pleased as always with the effect. Really, what was the point of having magical power if you weren't going to use it to make yourself comfortable? But for some reason, people assumed that an austere wizard was one who took his work seriously, but a wealthy one had to be a dilettante. It never seemed to occur to them that a wizard who wasn't wealthy was probably that way because he wasn't succeeding in his chosen profession.

 _But not me,_ Kou thought smugly. _I have everything under control._

With those comforting thoughts, he settled himself on his bed and closed his eyes for a nap.

The future... it was easy to dream of the future. He spent most of his time thinking about it, planning for it, working out every detail. He'd actually been looking forward to today, so he could get some confirmation of what he'd been hoping for, or else perhaps receive a warning of something he needed to prepare for. Either way, he felt that a glimpse of his future could only be productive. He was hardly surprised when he found himself dreaming of the castle's great hall, looking just as he'd always imagined it would be when he finally had the power to arrange it the way he wanted it. He was even more pleased when he saw who was seated in the throne: lowly prince Tazawa, now raised to the height of king - with Kou sitting right beside him on a smaller, plainer chair, the real power behind the throne. He was sipping something from a golden goblet as a courtier spoke to him with head deferentially bowed. Even in his sleep, Kou could hardly contain his glee. Everything was just as he had imagined it would be.

Then the scene shifted. Where there had been sunlight before, there was now a dark sky lit only by the distant glow of fires. The great hall was looking a bit threadbare now, as if no one had been able to take care of it for some time. Kou, too, was looking threadbare. There were bags under his eyes, as if he hadn't been sleeping, and his face had a pinched look that suggested that food hadn't been high on his list of priorities lately either. Tazawa stood before him in battered armor, one arm in a bloodstained sling.

"We can't hold them off anymore," he was saying. "Can't you do something?"

"I've tried! Nothing works!" Kou snapped.

"But you must be able to think of something. You always think of something," said Tazawa. His tone was pleading. There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that if he just asked persuasively enough, Kou would make all the problems go away. Kou knew that was wrong. He was not the sort to put himself through any unnecessary pain. If things were this bad, they were out of his power to fix.

Before he could say as much, a soldier barged into the room, panting heavily.

"Sir," he croaked, "the invaders have broken through our last defenses. We did everything we could."

"I... I see," said Kou, his voice shaking slightly. He stood up. "In that case, there's something I need to do."

With that, he turned and walked stiffly out of the room, with Tazawa scampering after him, demanding to know what his wizard was planning on doing. Poor man, he seemed to think that Kou was about to make some last-ditch effort. The real Kou, the one who was watching all this happen in his dream, knew better. He's seen the look in his own eyes and knew that he'd never surrender or let himself get caught. Either he was getting ready to send himself to the other side of the world and leave all this behind, or, if he couldn't manage to escape... well, he wouldn't let them humiliate him. He'd never been a brave man. One way or another, he would find a way to elude their justice, even if he had to take matters into his own hands...

Kou woke with a gasp and sat up in bed panting. His clothes were damp with sweat, and his pulse still pounded. For a moment, he could have sworn he smelled the smoke of distant fires and heard the clash of swords against armor. In those few seconds, it was all he could do not to race out of his room and flee before the terror caught up to him.

Then he closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. The smell of smoke resolved itself into the scents from the cooking fires downstairs, and the clanging of weapons into the more domestic clatter of pots and pans. The kitchen staff had awakened from their afternoon naps and were now hard at work on that night's dinner preparations. Kou continued taking deep breaths of reassuring cooking smells until his heart rate was back to something almost like normal.

 _It was only a dream,_ he told himself, but he couldn't make himself believe it. Any other day, a dream might just be a dream, but not on Solstice. These dreams were decreed by Fate and delivered by Cerulean himself, and they could no more be altered than the course of the sun or the movements of the stars. If his dream said that his attempt to rule the kingdom would end in death and ruin, then that was how it was fated to be.

 _I don't want to die..._

But he didn't want to give up his plan, either. He'd worked too hard to just turn around and walk away now. Besides, Tazawa was counting on him. What was the poor guy going to do without Kou to guide him? He'd never make it on his own.

"There has to be another way," he told himself, staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "Even Fate has to have some room for compromise somewhere..."

When Tazawa came to wake him a few minutes later, he was already up and rummaging through his library, pulling out book after book and riffling through their indexes.

"Uh... are you okay?" Tazawa asked. "You really need to stop. It's almost time for dinner..."

"Never mind that now!" Kou snapped. "I have research to do!"


	2. New Year's Resolution

On the afternoon of the first day of the new year, Atsushi went to visit En.

All things considered, he didn't feel too bad about this. Kinshiro had said that he had been looking forward to the two of them spending a lazy day together, and Atsushi didn't think he'd been lying. The two of them had started out well enough, not even leaving their bed until almost noon, and then spending a few hours lounging in front of the fire, opening presents and sharing treats, telling stories, cuddling and stealing kisses. Atsushi had no doubt that Kinshiro had enjoyed every minute of it. It was just that Kinshiro was not the sort who excelled at idleness, and after a few hours of doing nothing in particular, he'd reached his limit of laziness.

"I just want to check in on a few things," he'd said, casting a longing look at the door to his study.

"Take your time," Atsushi said. "I need to bring En his Solstice present anyway."

Kinshiro had nodded assent, and Atsushi, knowing he could be gone as much as an hour before Kinshiro started to miss him, had set out for En's room with a clear conscience.

When Atsushi had first come to live in the Heavenly City, he'd been overwhelmed. His whole life had been mostly preparation to take over the family inn someday. He'd grown up in a small town in the middle of nowhere, living a life of hard work and self-sacrifice. Then he'd fallen in love with Kinshiro and gotten himself dragged into a world of privilege and luxury that still sometimes baffled him. In many ways, he found himself envying Akoya, who had also been human once, and who yet seemed to fit in here as if he'd been born for the job. Akoya had a fine sense of his own importance, and seemed to believe that he deserved all the good things that had come his way. Atsushi had learned from Ryuu that this had not always been the case - that when Akoya had first come to the Heavenly City, he'd been isolated, paranoid, driven half out of his mind by the relentless pressure of so many people lusting after him - but there was no sign of that now. Atsushi could only hope that someday he'd be as confident in his role as Akoya was.

He did have a few things going for him, at least. One of those was Kinshiro, who in Atsushi's mind was worth any amount of effort. One of the others was En. He had offered to be Atsushi's friend even before Atsushi had known what Fate had in store for him, and En had kept his promise. Right from day one, he'd always been hanging around somewhere nearby whenever Atsushi needed him, explaining the local customs, showing him around the Palace of the Gods, or just sitting next to him at lunch to keep him company. Granted, what was lunch to most people was breakfast to En, but the companionship was all that mattered. Atsushi had been very grateful for En's presence the first few weeks of his new life. Something about his constant drowsiness and carelessness made it easy to forget about stress for a while.

So with Kinshiro happily enmeshed in his paperwork, it was only natural for Atsushi to want to pay his best friend a visit. He made the trip to En's room at a walk, pausing now and then to say hello to an acquaintance in the halls. He thought with some amusement that En would probably approve of his leisurely pace. At last, though, he reached the door to En's room and knocked on it. For a moment, there was no answer. Atsushi felt a prickle of unease. Was En still not home? Where could he have gone? Why would he have gone anywhere? Nervous now, Atsushi knocked again, louder now.

"Nngh?" said a sleepy voice. "Who is it?"

Atsushi heaved a sigh of relief. "Just me."

"Oh," said En, sounding a little more lively. "Okay. Come in. Door's not locked."

Atsushi let himself into the room. The floor bounced a little under his feet, but he was used to it. Sometimes he'd even try jumping on it, if he was in a silly mood. En's room was a good place for bouncing - even the walls and furniture were padded. Today, though, he only strode across the room to join En on the plushly upholstered blue sofa that was pushed against one wall.

"Missed you last night," he said, as he handed En the brightly wrapped box he'd brought. "Happy Solstice."

"Same to you," said En, mustering up a smile. He sat up and pushed his hair out of his eyes.

 _He looks tired,_ Atsushi thought. En always looked sleepy, of course, but today he looked _tired_. He was pale and drawn, and there were shadows under his eyes. That was strange. Gods did not get sick, and it took a lot to make them weary.

"Hey," he said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just tired. I worked hard yesterday," said En. "All those dreams at once takes it out of a guy."

Atsushi smiled. "The one day of the year you have to work."

"Yeah, it's a real pain. Glad it's over for a year," said En.

"And that's why you look so tired now?" Atsushi persisted.

En gave him an odd look. "What else is there?"

"I don't know," said Atsushi. "Only that I knocked on your door last night and you weren't here."

"Maybe I was sleeping."

"I came inside and looked. You weren't here."

En sighed. "I guess I couldn't fool everyone forever."

"So where were you?" Atsushi asked. Then, "Is something wrong?"

"No, no, nothing's wrong! Sheesh, you worry too much," said En hastily. "It's just that..." He paused and ran his hands through his hair. "It's just complicated."

"Come on," said Atsushi. "You can tell me. We're friends, aren't we?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." En chewed his lower lip, looking as agitated as Atsushi had ever seen him. "I've never told anyone, though. It's a secret. You've got to promise not to tell, okay?"

"I promise," said Atsushi instantly.

" _Swear._ "

Atsushi sighed a little, knowing what he was being asked for. "All right, I swear. On my name and my power and the foundations of the City. I won't tell anybody unless you say it's okay."

En sat up a little straighter, looking mollified. "All right. The thing is, I was visiting Fate and Chance. I do it every year, on Solstice night."

"Don't they usually take weeks to find?" Atsushi asked. His understanding of how Fate and Chance worked was that while they always lived at their bath house, the bath house tended to move around according to a system only the two of them understood. No one ever found them unless they wanted you to.

"For most people. Not for me," said En, with a show of pride. "I have special permission. I can always find them, no matter how much they move around."

"Why?" Atsushi asked.

En looked offended. "Don't go 'why' at me like that."

"Sorry," said Atsushi. "It's not that I don't think you're important. I just wondered."

"It's because of the dreams," said En. "Sometimes I give people dreams that tell them the future, right? And for that, I need to _know_ the future, or at least have some kind of line on it. The only people who know what the future is going to be like are Fate and Chance, because they're the ones who decide the future, so I have to be able to get in touch with them."

"So..." said Atsushi thoughtfully, "what you're telling me is that on Solstice night, you were at the bath house... laying in a stock of future."

En laughed. "That's a good way to put it. I go on Solstice because it's the start of the year, but mostly because that's the one time I know everyone else in the City is busy elsewhere."

"Makes sense," said Atsushi. "Thank you for telling me. Don't worry - I won't tell anyone where you went."

"Thanks," said En. "If anyone asks, I was visiting friends. That's true, and it's all anyone needs to know."

Atsushi smiled. "So, anything good in the future I ought to know about?"

"Hey, don't ask me!" said En, laughing. "I only hand out dreams. If you decided to fool around during your nap hour, you get to deal with the consequences."

"Fair enough!" said Atsushi, laughing. "Speaking of which, I ought to get back. Kinshiro is going to be wondering where I've wandered off to."

En smiled. "Better not keep him waiting. I don't want him in here dragging you back."

"He's not that bad," said Atsushi, but he was getting up anyway. "Happy new year, En. I'll see you at lunch tomorrow."

En waved a leisurely hand. "Sure, sure. Thanks for dropping by. Thanks for the gift... and Atsushi?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for asking. You're the first person in hundreds of years to have noticed I wasn't there."

Atsushi smiled. "Well, sure I noticed. You're my friend."

Atsushi returned to his room in a thoughtful state of mind. In an odd way, it pleased him that his friend had been entrusted with something so important. People tended to look down on En, and make jokes about his habit of falling asleep at odd moments. It amused him to imagine their consternation if they understood the honor he'd been entrusted with.

 _Too bad I can't tell anyone,_ he thought. It would be nice if En could get a little more respect. Then again, perhaps he didn't want any. More respect would probably mean more work, and that was the one thing En avoided at all costs.

 _Well, maybe someday,_ Atsushi told himself. He was sure that En could prove himself if he wanted to.

In the meantime, it was still a holiday, and he had only a few hours left to enjoy it. He could take a leaf out of En's book and be lazy just a little while longer. More serious thoughts could wait.

* * *

The fire in Ryuu's fireplace put out a cozy warmth. He was very good at fires - they weren't his primary element, but he could certainly manage well enough to keep the room comfortable even when the weather outside was freezing. Just now, the curtains of his room were open to let in the sunlight, which reflected dazzlingly off the snow and the golden roofs outside, so that the room seemed warm and cheery even with the lamps unlit. Just now, Ryuu was curled up in a nest of blankets and pillows in front of the fire, with Io tucked on one side of him and Akoya on the other. Piled all around them were the many gifts they'd received from their friends and admirers. Between the three of them, that was a lot of people, and the piles of presents made a respectable heap.

Ryuu was ignoring his gifts in favor of simply enjoying the companionship of his two consorts. He hadn't seen nearly enough of either of them over the last few months, what with Io being busy with work and Akoya living in the underworld since autumn. The fact that Akoya was the god of spring meant that his powers waxed and waned as the seasons turned. During his own time, he was easily the strongest of the three of them, capable of doing almost anything he cared to. In the colder months, though, he weakened considerably, and preferred to stay in Io's city where Io could protect him from harm, and where he could spend his time in quiet pursuits without being bothered. Today marked the turning point when his powers would be on the rise again, and soon he'd be returning to stay with Ryuu full time, which meant that Io would start spending more time in the Heavenly City as well. Ryuu was looking forward to that. He didn't cope well in isolation. Just now, having both of them with him was far more appealing than any gift anyone could give him. He sighed contentedly and snuggled a little more deeply beneath his blanket.

Next to him, Akoya was picking through his boxes of gifts to see if anything caught his fancy. He had a lot of admirers, so his haul had been impressive enough to require the help of several of his attendants to get them all carried to his room. Fortunately, he had plenty of those. One of the first things he had done in his capacity as god of new beginnings was to arrange for his mother to be reincarnated in the most glamorous new body he could conjure. She had married happily, and had several children. Many of these offspring, along with their own children and grandchildren, had gone into the priesthood of Pearlite, and when they had died, Akoya had willingly gathered them to himself. He seemed to like being surrounded by his spiritual brothers and sisters, and treated them with considerable kindness. This year, they had repaid him with boxes and boxes of the things he liked best - bottles of perfume, scented candles, lotions and soaps, and a veritable mountain of the macarons he so adored. Even with his sweet tooth, it would doubtless take him weeks to finish them all. Just now, he was opening the boxes one by one to see what flavors there were, perhaps sampling one or two, and then moving on to the next package.

"Hm. This one has cherry jam in it," he said, holding the sweet up for Ryuu's inspection. "Do you want it?"

Ryuu smiled. "You're too good to me."

"I didn't say I'd give it to you for free," said Akoya coyly. "I just asked if you wanted it. I might give it to you, though, if you were to do something for me in return..."

"Hmph. Some ungrateful consort you turned out to be," Ryuu mock-grumped.

"Play nice, you two," Io chided gently. "This is our holiday, after all."

"I know." Ryuu sighed. "I wish you two didn't have to leave so soon."

"It will be spring again before you know it," Akoya consoled him.

"Can't get here soon enough for me," said Ryuu.

"Oh, I know," said Akoya archly.

Ryuu grinned, unrepentant. The thing about spring was that when the birds and beasts started waking up and looking for mates, Akoya, as incarnation of springtime, could feel it. There were a few days at the beginning of every spring when it was all even Ryuu could do to keep up with him. Ryuu used to feel a bit guilty about taking so much time away from his work every year to amuse himself with his consort. Then there had come a spring when a group of demons had been working to incite a war between three feuding kings, one that would have ruined not only the three kingdoms involved but several others surrounding them. Aurite had declared an all-hands-on-deck situation, and for a while there had been no time to do anything but make sure the impending war didn't happen. In the end, the battle had been averted, but that spring had been cold and wet, with meager crops and few animals born. After that, Ryuu considered it practically his duty to help Akoya usher in the beginning of spring. He could hardly wait.

But that was for later. He stirred a little, enough to raise a hand and coax the fire into burning a little more brightly. People sometimes made snide remarks about his sex drive, but the truth was, he was quite content just to be where he was: snug and warm and surrounded by people he loved, and a fresh new year ahead of him. Everything was just as it should be.

Next to him, he felt Akoya give a shudder.

"Something wrong?" Ryuu asked, coming alert. Next to him, Io sat up a little straighter to look at Akoya with concern.

"I don't know," said Akoya slowly. "I just have... a bad feeling. Something bad is starting."

Ryuu and Io glanced at each other. Akoya was known as the god of new beginnings - the mortal who had begun again as a god, the vain, spoiled little boy who had become a man with responsibility over all mankind, the deity who ushered in the first new season of the year. He had no gift of prophecy, but if he said something was starting _now_ , it was probably true, and if he said it was something bad...

"What is it?" Io asked.

"I'm not sure," said Akoya. He was staring off into middle distance, expression blank. "I can't quite get a fix on it." He reached blindly for their hands. "Help me."

Ryuu and Io immediately took his hands, and then reached their free hands towards each other to make a circle. All three of them bowed their heads, concentrating their energies. Ryuu took a deep breath and closed his eyes, reaching for the source of his power. His surface self, the self that everyone around him saw, was that of a cheerful young man - fun-loving, affectionate, always ready for a good time. Underneath it all, though, he was still one of the primal forces of the universe, the force that brought new life into the world. That was the place where his power met Akoya's, and that was what he drew on now, loaning that strength to his consort.

"I feel it too," he said.

"So do I," said Io. "There's avarice bound up in it, I can tell that much."

"And desire for change," Akoya murmured. "Someone small who wants to make himself into something great."

Ryuu frowned. "It's funny... there's love bound up into it, too."

"Is there?" Akoya said distractedly. "How very odd." He shook his head, surfacing from whatever trance he was in. "I'm still not quite sure what's about to happen. It's too close to the beginning for me to see where it's leading. I only know for certain that if something doesn't change soon, someone is going to start down a path that will lead to disaster."

"How big a disaster are we talking about here?" asked Io carefully. "Personal level? City level? Kingdom level?"

Akoya shook his head slowly. "World level. Universe level. _Reality_ level."

Ryuu and Io stared at him for a moment.

"I think," said Io, "we had better talk to Aurite."

* * *

At the first light of dawn, nearly everyone in the kingdom of Pineridge had drunk their final toasts to the new year and staggered off to bed, after having remained awake the entire night. Kou had stayed up the entire night, too, but he hadn't been drinking and celebrating, and he wasn't about to go to bed now. He had spent the entire night poring over his library, page by page, trying in vain to find the answer he needed. When he'd exhausted that resource, he'd gone to the castle's library, which was short on magical tomes but long on history and legend, and had continued his search there. Now, with the sun creeping slowly over the horizon, he was forced to admit defeat. He slammed the book he'd been perusing back onto its shelf and stomped out of the library. This was not how he'd wanted to start the new year: tired, grouchy, with itching eyes and aching head, and yet more pain to come.

 _I'm not giving up yet,_ he thought stubbornly. _There is always an answer, and I always find it!_

In his drowsy mind, that thought continued to burn clear and bright. It was possible that if he'd let himself get more sleep, he would have been thinking more clearly.

As it was, he simply slouched up to his room, preparing himself for what he knew would come next. There were three ways of becoming a wizard in this world. One was to be given the power as a gift from a god. Usually this was something that had to be earned, and in any case required lifelong devotion to the god in question to make it stick. The second kind was the sort who drew raw power from the forces of nature. These tended to be less powerful and accurate than those with divinely granted gifts, and generally needed a lot of help from wands and crystals and magic potions to get anything done. Kou did that sort of thing most of the time. With a little cleverness and resourcefulness, he could get a lot of effect out of a very small expenditure of power. Still, there was a third way, a court of last resort, that he only used when he was out of other options and needed immediate results. Now felt like one of those times.

He retreated to his rooms and locked both his front door and the connecting door between his room and Tazawa's. There were some things his friend just didn't need to know. For good measure, he braced a couple of chairs against each door. After last night, he doubted even the servants would be awake, but you never knew. When he was absolutely certain he wouldn't be disturbed, he began rolling up his rug. Beneath the soft carpet was a design etched into the stone of the floor, in the shape of a many-pointed star, its overlapping lines forming a shape that was somehow unpleasant. The center of the design was slightly stained.

"I _hate_ doing this," Kou muttered. "Hate it, hate it, hate it..."

Nevertheless, he fetched a silver knife from among the knickknacks on his shelf and carried it over to his diagram. Wincing, he held his hand out over the center of the design and slashed the blade across his palm. He couldn't bite back a yelp at the pain, but the cut did the job. Blood trickled down his fingers to splatter on the floor. Kou watched as a small puddle formed at his feet. When it filled the circle at the center of the diagram and began splattering over the edges, he wrapped a handkerchief around the cut. Ignoring his stinging palm, he rattled off an incantation. This was the third way - the route taken by the depraved, the desperate, and the utterly determined. Kou liked to think he fell into that last category, but no matter how you explained it, he was going to summon a demon.

Carefully, trying not to slur his words out of sheer exhaustion, Kou said the words that would open a portal to the Abyss and summon up the forces of primal darkness. Shadows began gathering over the diagram, slinky wisps of greenish-black smoke that twisted like tortured snakes. An odor of decay and wet stone rose up in the room, bringing with it a damp chill, so that his airy well-lit room took on the feel of a deep subterranean cave. With an effort, Kou forced out the final word of command. There was a dull _whump_ , and the smoke cleared...

...revealing a goldfish and a hedgehog sitting at the center of the star. The hedgehog was yawning hugely and rubbing at his beady eyes. The goldfish was looking, well, rather green around the gills. Kou wondered if he was a bit hung over.

"Sheesh, kid," Hireashi muttered, blinking his bulbous eyes. "What do you think you're doin'? Don't you know it's a holiday? People are tryin'a sleep..."

"Answer one question and you can go," said Kou. "How do I change my fate?"

Hireashi's expression took on a shade of interest. "We talking just general 'my life sucks, is there anything I can do about it?' fate, or are we talking about with-a-capital-F, decreed by the lord of the universe Fate?"

"The second kind," said Kou.

"You don't," said Hireashi tersely. "That's what makes it Fate. Can we go back to bed now?"

"There has to be a way," Kou insisted. "I refuse to believe all my work has been for nothing. There has to be a way to get Fate to change his mind."

"Fate doesn't change his mind," said Hireashi. "That's what makes him Fate. When he changes his mind, he's not Fate anymore, he's..." His mouth snapped shut, and Zundar glared at him.

"You shouldn't have said that!" he snapped. "That was a secret, da!"

Hireashi glared back. "Look, we're contracted to the kid. That means we gotta answer his questions, even when they're really _stupid_ questions."

"I don't get what you're talking about," Kou complained. "Fate is Fate, isn't he?"

"Not always," said Hireashi. "Look. In the Beginning, there was no Fate, only Chaos. That's how it all started. He didn't become Fate until later, after Chance appeared and the two of them decided to put the universe into some sort of order. You know how it's, like, sometimes Sulfur is the god of prosperity, and sometimes he's a death god? It's like that. He's got two different, aspects, only Chance is always looking after him, now, to make sure it never works out that he happens to go back to being Chaos again. So you can see, it's totally impossible. You might as well forget the whole thing."

"I see," said Kou thoughtfully. "One more question. Is there a way to trap a god?"

Hireashi looked alarmed. "You aren't thinking of trying to capture Fate, are you? Because if you are, I'm breaking my contract right now."

"No, no, of course not," said Kou. "I'm just asking, you know, in general."

"Oh, in _general_ , I see," said Hireashi doubtfully. "Still no. There's no way you're gonna trap a god. I mean, not without the Water of Life."

Zundar rolled his eyes. "I'm never letting you near alcohol again."

"What? It ain't like he's gonna get his hands on it," said Hireashi.

"What's the Water of Life?" Kou asked.

Hireashi made his piscine approximation of a shrug. "I dunno. Sort of... liquid universe stuff, I guess?"

"It's the essence of the material the universe is made from," said Zundar. "It is potential given form. Being too close to it can disrupt a god's integrity."

"Gods aren't exactly, you know, solid," said Hireashi. "They're more... concepts that got the idea they could be people."

Zundar glared at the interruption, but continued, "They won't cross a boundary marked by the Water of Life, because it might cause them to lose their identity and dissolve back into a mindless force of nature."

"But it won't work on Fate, so you might as well not even try," Hireashi concluded.

"Fine," said Kou. "I wasn't planning on it. One last question: how do I get the Water of Life? And don't tell me I don't!"

"You don't, though," said Hireashi. "The Water of Life belongs to Fate, and he doesn't exactly hand it out like a bag of Solstice sweets. He keeps it pretty safe, I don't mind tellin' ya."

"Great. Thanks," said Kou. "That's all I needed to know."

"You didn't _need_ to know any of that, da," said Zundar, sounding annoyed.

"Well, what I wanted to know, then," said Kou. "I'm done with you now. Go on, go back to sleep."

"Don't do anything stupid," Zundar grumbled.

"Right," said Hireashi. "And if you do, don't tell anyone we gave you the idea."

The two of them vanished, simply burrowing into the floor as if it were soft sand instead of stone, and in a few seconds they were out of sight.

Kou didn't mind. He'd gotten what he wanted from them. Briskly, he cleaned up the mess made by the summoning, put his rug back in place, and unlocked his doors before anyone could get too suspicious. That was the easy part. He sighed.

"Back to work," he muttered.

By the time Tazawa, still tousled and yawning from sleep, came staggering into his room, Kou thought he had his answer. After digging through his stacks of reference books, he'd finally come upon his copy of _The Trial of Aurite_ by High Priest Ibushi Arima, his first-hand account of the circumstances that led up to the ascension of a humble innkeeper to the status of god and consort of the mighty Aurite. It wasn't usually the sort of thing Kou read for fun, being, in his opinion, a little heavy-handed on the moralizing and far too impressed with the characters involved. What was so great about a guy who did nothing but sit around judging people, anyway? Any opinionated fool could do that. The really important part, in this case, was a small aside, barely a footnote in the story, mentioning a certain bathhouse that the principal players in the story liked to frequent. Kou thought it sounded like a place he'd definitely like to visit.

"Hey, whassup?" said Tazawa blearily. "You're sure up early."

Given that it was eleven o'clock in the morning, this would have been a ridiculous comment on any other day. Kou decided to let it slide.

"I'm planning a vacation," he said instead.

Tazawa's expression turned worried. "You're leaving?"

"Going on an important journey," he said. "You can come too, if you like. I doubt anyone will mind."

Tazawa brightened immediately. Tired as he was, Kou had to smile. It was nice to be appreciated.

"So where are we going?" Tazawa asked.

"A holy pilgrimage," said Kou piously. "Tell me, have you ever been to Binan?"


	3. A Jar of Earth, A Jar of Water

As it turned out, Tazawa had never been to Binan. He'd never really been interested in going anywhere, but if his only friend was going there then he was going, too. It wasn't actually a very long trip, particularly with a wizard facilitating the journey and a prince's pocketbook taking care of the expenses. It was less than a week by the time the two of them were checking into the Mountain's Arms and preparing to have a look around the city.

"So what are we going to do here?" Tazawa asked, as he peered with mild interest out the window of their room at the inn. This was the first time he'd actually bothered to bring up the question. That was one of the things that Kou appreciated about him: he didn't ask a lot of prying questions.

"Souvenir hunting," said Kou. "This is a holy city, you know!"

"I didn't think you were much interested in gods," said Tazawa.

Well, that was true enough. He paid attention to them out of necessity, but he'd never felt the need to declare himself a follower of any particular god. He didn't want that kind of attention.

"All wizards are interested in gods," he said, "academically speaking. Anyway, I promised you that someday I'd make you a king, right? This is the next step towards that. I'm looking for a holy object that will help."

"Oh. All right," said Tazawa, agreeable as ever. "So do you need my help, or can I go sightseeing?"

Kou smiled. "Go sightseeing. Buy some souvenirs. I won't be gone long."

"Okay," said Tazawa. "Later, then."

He scooped up his satchel and ambled out the door. Kou waited for him to leave before gathering up his own things. In his bag, he tucked a copy of the _Trial of Aurite_ , a garden trowel, a map of the city, and a small jar with a lid. Satisfied that he had everything he was going to need, he set out into the city.

Binan had been a small town once, sleepy and obscure. Very few people had ever come to Binan, and none of them stayed there very long. There was nothing much to hold anyone's interest there.

That was before. Now Binan was a thriving city, a destination spot for devotees of a whole spectrum of gods. The first temple of Epinard stood here, on the place where his inn had once stood. In fact, the old inn had been incorporated into it, and his followers still welcomed travelers as part of their service. A small temple of Aurite had been built nearby, and another to Argent. Even the simple old church that had once been shared by the entire pantheon had been made over and rebuilt into a shrine to Cerulean, who had amused himself for a few days by staying there pretending to be a priest. Various other temples and shrines had popped up all over the city, but most of the action centered on Epinard. Kou found himself being stopped every time he pulled out his map and asked if he needed to know the way to the temple.

"No, I'm fine," Kou assured them all. "I can manage."

"Are you sure?" asked an earnest young man. "That map is awfully old."

It was very old map. Kou had carefully copied it from an atlas he'd found tucked away in a dusty corner of the castle library. It was amazing what you could find in old books. This map had been made back before there had even been an Epinard, and it showed.

Still, it was adequate for his purposes. Kou stopped in front of the temple of Epinard and gazed up at it. He had to admit, it was a pleasant-looking place, suitable for a shrine to the god of hospitality. Under other circumstances, he might have even been tempted to go inside. He'd had breakfast less than an hour ago, but the scents of eggs and sausage and baking pastries wafting through the front doors were still enough to make his mouth water. He promised himself that once he was finished with his errand and had his prize stashed safely away somewhere (he was _not_ going to risk drawing the gods' attention by carrying something like that into one of their holy places) he'd find Tazawa and drag him back here for lunch.

The map he was following took him down the main street, out of the central part of town and into a more residential area. The buildings here were mostly houses, mostly with flower boxes in the windows and some that even had a bit of lawn to show for themselves. Kou walked slowly here, pacing up and down the street examining each building with great care, even contemplating the road beneath his feet. At last, he settled on one house in particular - the largest and most well-maintained on the block, the one with the broadest lawn and the most flower boxes and sparkly wind chimes. Whoever lived here had been fortunate in their life choices. If Kou stood very still and focused all his attention, he could feel a soft warmth radiating from the place - the residual traces of power being used there long ago. It was still blessing this site, and if his plan worked, it would help him out, too.

He cast a quick glance up and down the street. There was no one around. Satisfied, he made a leap for the fence, managed to get his hands over the top, scrambled a bit, and finally managed to hook one foot over it. He hauled with all his meager strength and finally managed to get himself over the top. He tumbled and fell hard onto the grass. For a few seconds, he lay sprawled there, trying to get some air back into his lungs.

"Should have... brought... Tazawa," he panted, as he pushed himself into a sitting position. At least _he_ was tall enough that the fence wouldn't have given him quite so much trouble.

Still, he was here now. He paced around the yard, trying to find a point where the energy was the strongest. He found it in one corner of the yard, next to an ornamental birdbath. Eagerly, he crouched down, took out the trowel, and dug away a bit of the grass to get at the dirt beneath.

"Hey!" a female voice shouted. "What do you think you're doing?"

Kou fumbled his trowel and dropped it. He jerked his head around to see an elderly housekeeper storming out the front door, her face set in furious lines. Swearing, he grabbed up his spade, scooped up a clod of dirt, and dumped it into his jar. His hands were shaking so much that he spilled quite a bit of it, but some of it went in, and that was good enough. He slapped the lid onto his jar, stuffed jar and spade into his bag, and made a run for the gate.

"You come back here!" the woman shouted. "I'm not through with you yet!" She gave a shrill whistle. "Snowflake! Storm!"

She was answered by several gruff barks and the sound of scampering paws. From somewhere inside the house emerged two dogs, one black, one white. They weren't very big as guard dogs went, but they were dismayingly enthusiastic and had a lot of sharp white teeth. That was more than enough to convince Kou he would be better off elsewhere. He flung himself at the gate and scrabbled at the latch.

"How in the name of Cerulean's blessed bedsheets does this thing open?" he wailed.

"Get him, boys!" the crone commanded, and the dogs went racing across the lawn, snarling with frantic fury.

Kou gave a yelp, abandoned his efforts to undo the latch, and leaped for the top of the fence. A dog flung itself at him, seizing on the cuff of his trousers. He kicked at it wildly, holding on to the top of the fence with a death grip.

 _Who thought it was a good idea to name this thing Snowflake? Avalanche is more like it!_

With a wild flailing, he managed to get is other leg over the fence and began hauling for all he was worth. He actually managed to get the dog a few inches off the ground before it finally gave up the struggle and let go. Kou tumbled down into the street, this time miraculously managing to roll instead of simply falling flat on his back and getting the wind knocked out of him again, and hauled himself into a staggering run. After a couple of blocks, he slipped into an alley and collapsed against the wall to collect himself. Gradually, his heart rate went back to normal, and he began to feel a little more cheerful. Now that he was safe, it actually amused him to think what the old woman was going to tell everyone. What was she going to say - that she caught a stranger in her yard stealing _dirt_? No one would ever believe her.

Still, he'd done what he'd set out to do. Almost reverently, he reached into his bag and drew out the little jar to study its contents. He could feel the traces of power radiating off the simple handful of dirt. He was going to do great things with this token.

Getting it, though, had been the easy part. Now the _real_ work would begin.

* * *

Akoya's footsteps made no sound on the soft, damp earth. He smiled a little as he walked. It was funny - he was considered by many to be a symbol of new life, and yet he was one of the few gods who was welcome in all three levels of the underworld. Naturally, he was always welcome in the Land of the Blessed Dead, because he was married to Io and Io was master there, but somewhere along the line the other realms had opened their doors to him as well. With his ties to both death and rebirth, it had been decided that he was the ideal person to take on the job of overseeing reincarnations - as if he didn't already have enough to do. Still, he liked the work, and it was nice to have the change of scenery once in a while.

That was why he was strolling through one of the many winding lanes that crisscrossed the Land of the Peaceful Dead, trying not to get mud on his sandals. Where in Io's kingdom, it was eternally a festival night, full of lights and music and people enjoying themselves, the Land of the Peaceful Dead was a place of eternal early morning. There was always a soft mist over everything, edged with hints of sunrise gold and pink. The residents lived in cozy cottages, generally with a bit of garden in back, and occasionally clustering together enough to make something resembling a small village. It was always quiet there, always suffused with a sense of drowsy contentment. The people there had lived quiet, unassuming lives, and having died, were continuing their unassuming ways. Akoya had always rather liked it here, at least in small doses. Living there permanently would have bored him silly, but for an occasional visit, it was soothing.

He continued ambling through the fog until at last he came to the cottage he wanted. It looked well-worn and comfortable, as if someone had been living there happily for quite a long time, which indeed it had been. An addition had been built onto the original structure, and there were flower boxes around the windows spilling over with colorful petunias. The front lawn had been decorated with a few wooden pinwheels and benches. The most recent addition, new since the last time Akoya had visited, was an ivy trellis that arched over the front walk. He strolled beneath it and on towards the front door, where he knocked briskly and let himself in.

The inside of the house smelled of freshly cut wood and good cooking. A quick glance around the kitchen revealed the source of at least one scent: a man was standing over the stove, cooking a large pot of soup. He glanced up in surprise as Akoya came in.

"Oh!" the man exclaimed, dropping his spoon in surprise. He crouched and scrabbled for it on the floor. "I'm so sorry! I didn't expect you to get here so early!"

Akoya assured him that it was no problem, really. He had noticed that people living in the underworld tended to lose track of time easily. He'd spoken to people who had been dead for decades and asked them how long they'd been in the underworld, and they would generally shrug and say they weren't sure but that it couldn't have been more than a month or two. No matter when Akoya arrived, his hosts would have been sure he was early.

A door at the back of the room opened, and the house's second occupant, a lean man with piercing blue eyes under shaggy eyebrows and the callused hands of a woodworker. He gave a start when he saw his guest.

"Oh! You're here!" he blurted. "I mean... it's good to see you again, my lord. Do you have good news for us?"

"I do," said Akoya. "I've managed to arrange suitable bodies for you. You can leave whenever you're ready."

The two men exchanged looks of nervous excitement. Akoya smiled. This would be their third try at reincarnation, and seeing them together like this pleased him immensely. Some people found different romantic partners every time they were reborn, but there were a few lucky pairs who actually seemed to be soul mates, and found each other again and again no matter how often they were separated. These two were among the lucky ones. They had met in their first lifetime when one was a woodworker and the other was working in his family's restaurant. Since then, they had been married three times: once after they had first met, once again when one was an architect and the other a helper on a construction site, and again when one had been a traveling merchant and the other a busboy at an inn. Each and every time, it had been love at first sight. It was nice knowing some things could be relied upon.

"Just let me take the food off the oven," said the man who had been cooking.

"I'll just put my tools away," said the other.

Akoya smiled. "Take all the time you like."

In short order, the two of them had their house tidied and ready to lock up until they needed it again - which would be, most likely, in about eighty years or so. Once everything was safely put away, they returned to the kitchen, where Akoya had been sitting and sipping tea while he waited for them to put their affairs in order.

"Ready?" he asked them.

They nodded and reached for each other's hands.

"Good," said Akoya. "Brace yourselves, then."

They nodded and turned to face each other.

"See you on the other side," said one.

"I'll be waiting for you," said the other.

They leaned in for one last kiss before they returned to the lands of the living. Akoya raised his hands, and a warm pink glow engulfed the two of them. Then they were gone. Akoya nodded in satisfaction. He drank down the last of his tea, left the house, and locked the door behind him.

 _I'll just have to remember to check in on them in twenty years or so,_ he told himself as he left. It was amazing how fast that time could go by. He wondered what these two would be doing the next time he looked in on them. He wouldn't be surprised if they'd gravitated towards each other again without any divine help.

 _Not my help, anyway,_ he thought. _Perhaps the help of Fate._

He pondered that, as he left the underworld and returned to his quarters in the Palace of the Gods. He didn't know very much about the nature of Fate, and it wasn't just that he was young, as gods went. He'd been kicking around for a couple of centuries now, long enough that some days he almost forgot that he'd begun his life as a human, and he could still count on one hand the number of times he'd met the greatest of the gods face to face. He would have liked to have the opportunity to sit down with him and ask a few questions about the way the universe was run.

 _I wonder why he never socializes?_ The man seemed perfectly happy to spend the rest of eternity hanging around a bathhouse with his brother and their divine beasts for company. That was no way to live. Akoya could remember when he'd thought he preferred his own company to that of other people. Now he couldn't imagine what he would do without Ryuu and Io and all the rest of his friends. Was it only because Fate felt he was so powerful that he felt that mingling even with other gods would cause problems? Or was there something else at work?

 _I'm going to ask him the next time I see him,_ Akoya decided. There were a lot of things he'd like to ask, starting with just how much Fate had taken a hand in Akoya's own life and moving on down to asking whether he really had fated people like Wario and Kazutake to be together forever no matter how many times they reincarnated. _As if I'm ever likely to get a chance._

Well, at least he'd gotten his job done, and that was one thing to be proud of. He settled into his favorite chair by the window and picked up an embroidery hoop. He sewed very well - not so much because of any godly powers, but because he enjoyed it, and he'd had years to get extremely good at it. He didn't often get into these sorts of pensive moods, but when he did, the soothing regularity of placing one stitch after another helped to put his thoughts back in order.

He knew what was bothering him, of course. He and his consorts had gone to Aurite to tell him about that premonition he'd had, but nothing had ever come of it. Oh, Aurite had listened - he knew better than to question Akoya about his own area of expertise - and he'd put as many of his attendants as he could spare to searching for the source of the trouble. The trouble was that everything on Earth seemed peaceful. Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be going wrong, and if something was happening, it hadn't yet gone so far that Aurite could sniff it out as being unrighteous and strike it down. It was beginning to look as if Akoya had been mistaken, but he couldn't quite make himself believe it.

 _I really shouldn't fret so. It isn't my job to think deep thoughts. It's my job to be charming and look pretty. Let someone else ponder the ultimate fate of the universe._

Good advice, that, and most of the time, he was reasonably adept at taking it. Normally, he was only too happy to focus on his job, on keeping up his appearance, and pursuing his hobbies. Today, though, the idea of Fate hovered over him like a cloud of gnats, one that he couldn't quite seem to shake.

 _Could it be? I wonder..._

Before he could finish shaping that thought, there was a knock on his door. Then it opened, and Ryuu looked inside, his expression worried.

"Hey, you busy?" he asked.

Akoya set his sewing aside. "Not so much that I can't be interrupted. What's going on?"

"You need to get to the great hall," said Ryuu. "We've got company."

* * *

As far as weapons to conquer the greatest of the gods went, a jar of dirt was perhaps not the first thing most people would have asked for. Most people, given the option, might have asked for a magical sword, a holy shield, or some sort of blessed amulet. Kou, on the other hand, had plenty of blessed amulets, and none of them would have done him any good in this venture. A shield was fine to hide behind, but it wouldn't get anything done, and if someone had given him a sword, he probably would have stuck it in his foot. Anyway, he really didn't _want_ a fight. What he wanted was to find a god before the god found him, and for that, his jar of dirt was supremely useful.

One of the first principles of magic, and one of the easiest to make use of, was the principle of contagion. Stated simply, it said that if you spent a lot of time around something, a bit of your essence would rub off on it. If, for example, someone's child had gotten lost, you could use his favorite toy as a magical focus to track him down. If you wanted to put a spell on someone at a distance, you could use their hairbrush as a conduit to send it to them. It wasn't perfect, of course - the object had to be something that had had a _lot_ of contact with someone to be particularly effective, and even then, it was never as good as having the person you wanted to enspell actually there at hand. And for the most part, it wasn't any good against gods. Gods in general did not tend to hang around the mortal world for very long. They had their shrines and their temples, but they didn't normally _stay_ in those places for more than a few minutes at a time, and any traces they left would be overwritten by the hundreds of worshipers who traipsed through every day. Even if you could, by some miracle, get a fix on a god, they spent too much of their time in the Palace of the Gods where you couldn't reach them anyway.

But Fate and Chance were different. They didn't live in the Heavenly City. They lived on earth with the mortals, and they seemed to prefer staying in the same place for days or even weeks at a time. They were the most powerful of the gods, which meant that they left very strong traces. Even after not having been to a place in years, there was still enough of a trace left that Kou had been able to tease it out. Once he had that, well... the possibilities were limitless.

And that was what had led him to sitting under a bush, watching the door to a small bathhouse. So far, he didn't think anyone had seen him yet - or if they had, they had dismissed him as unimportant. One of the first things he'd done with his precious jar of dirt was to make a couple of amulets that surrounded himself and Tazawa with the auras of the gods he was tracking. It didn't do them a lot of good in most ways, but what it would do was to convince any god or magician who wasn't looking too closely that they were the same sort of thing as the dirt was, or the trees that surrounded the bathhouse: just bits of inanimate scenery that had soaked up a bit of the gods' power. As long as he was careful not to let anyone actually _see_ him, he should be invisible to any divine senses.

Sadly, it didn't render him impermeable to cold. Kou shivered a little and pulled his hat lower down over his ears. There was snow under the bush, and his backside was sodden from sitting in it. He wished he could go inside the building where it was warm, but he didn't dare do anything that would attract attention to him. Once he'd done what he'd come there to do, he would go back to the inn to warm himself, and hopefully have a few celebratory drinks with Tazawa.

 _I hope he's having a better time than I am,_ Kou thought, rubbing his hands together to try to get some warmth back in them. Poor Tazawa. He'd have come along, if Kou had let him. He'd have wanted to keep him company. He'd have wanted to help. He would have done a very poor job of it, but he would have tried. Kou had left him in the inn's common room with orders not to go _anywhere_ until he got back. The last time Kou had seen him, Tazawa had been perched in a chair in the corner with a sketch pad balanced on his bony knees and a stick of charcoal in one long thin hand, making drawings of the other patrons. That would hopefully be enough to keep him quietly occupied for a while.

 _Long enough to get this done, at least._

Birds twittered overhead. Branches rustled. Occasionally, a clump of snow would slide off an evergreen bough to land with a plop. Kou tried to keep his teeth from chattering.

Just when he was about to give it all up as a waste of time and come back again tomorrow, the door to the bathhouse opened, and a man stepped out.

He wasn't quite what Kou had imagined. He was average enough to look at - maybe a little taller than most, with carroty red hair and a few wisps on his chin that might have charitably been called a beard. He looked sturdy and strong, but no more so than any other man who made his living by the strength of his back and arms. He could have been any woodcutter or farmer or stonemason. There was an axe slung casually over one shoulder.

"Going to get some more wood," he called back into the house. "You'll be all right until I get back?"

"I'm bored," said a childish voice somewhere inside the building. "Can I come too?"

"If you want," said the man with the axe, "but it won't be any fun. I'll tell you what - why don't you go into town and get us something from the bakery?"

A blond head popped around the doorframe, eyes bright with excitement. "Can I get cake?"

The man with the axe gave a rolling laugh. "Sure, if you want. All you can carry home. You've got to eat well to stay warm, right?"

"Right!" the boy chirped.

The two of them went their separate ways - the boy sprinting towards the town, the man striding into the forest dragging a sledge for the wood. That was good, Kou thought. If he planned to chop wood the mortal way instead of just creating it out of raw firmament, he could be out there for hours, and it would take at least fifteen minutes for Chance to buy his cake, even if he just appeared in the town instead of walking. This was the best chance Kou was going to get. He waited a few seconds to make sure that everyone was out of earshot, and that they weren't going to remember something and come back. Then he crashed his way out of the shrubbery and hurried inside the building.

He was hit by a blast of warm, steamy air that briefly fogged his glasses. He stumbled a few steps, then stopped to scrub them on the hem of his shirt. Since his shirt was still damp with melted snow, it didn't help much, but at least he could more or less see. He was standing in an entryway, full of shelves where people could stash their shoes and bags, with a counter for people to pay a manager who wasn't in just now. In fact, the only sign of life was a fat pink furry creature asleep on a rug in front of a brazier. Kou tiptoed past him as carefully as he could, trying to avoid any shuffles or creaks that might wake it. Fortunately, the floor was made of sturdy beams, and his footfalls made hardly any sound as he picked his way to the door.

There was a curtained doorway leading to the baths, but Kou didn't spare that more than a brief glance. He doubted that what he wanted was likely to be stored in the areas that the public would have access to. Instead, he mounted the stairs to the second floor, where the living areas were most likely to be. His pulse raced. At any moment, he expected to hear a door opening downstairs, or hear the strange beast waking up and charging after him, or to just have one of the gods appear before him in a flash and strike him down where he stood. Instead, nothing happened. He tiptoed down a small hallway and peered through doors. One led to a cozy old-fashioned kitchen, where the scent of cooking rice still lingered in the air. The next room he looked in was a bedroom, with an unmade bed and clothes strewn in the corners and draped over chairs. One door led to a storage closet. The last door at the end of the hall led to another bedroom, this one scrupulously tidy to the point of looking rather bare. Kou turned away, disappointed. There was nothing to find in there.

Then he stopped. He'd glimpsed a door at the back of the room, closed tightly. He'd assumed without really thinking that it had led to a closet, but he'd seen closet doors, too - the slatted kind that let your clothes stay aired out even when the doors were closed. So what was the other door for? Breathing rapidly now, he crept across the room and reached for the handle.

He had to stifle a yelp. The metal nearly burned his hand, though with heat or cold, he couldn't tell. He whipped a kerchief out of his pocket, wrapped it around his hand, and tried the door again. This time, he was able to open it.

The wave of power that rolled over him was enough to make him stagger backwards, momentarily forgetting to guard his steps. The closet was dim inside, and yet his first instinct was to throw up one arm as if to shield his eyes from a blinding light. On one level, the objects in the closet looked like perfectly ordinary odds and ends - an axe, a ball of string, a glass jar of something that might have been salt or sand, a carefully rolled scroll, a few knives, something that looked rather like a large black egg, a few other less identifiable odds and ends. On some other level, though, he knew that these were things no mortal had even been meant to look at, things that had been used to shape the very nature of the universe, and nothing good could ever come of him touching them. For a moment, he felt the temptation to just slam the door, run away, and never have anything to do with magic or mysticism ever again.

 _Get hold of yourself,_ he thought firmly. _You didn't come all this way just to back down now._

Steeling himself, he looked up again. One of these things had to be what he was looking for. His eyes scanned the shelves, finally lighting on a fat clay jar sitting in a corner of the top shelf. It was crudely fashioned and clearly very old. It showed signs of having been moved recently, in the patterns of the dust around it. With sweating hands, Kou reached up and carefully took down the jar, grunting a little at the effort. It wasn't very big, but it was heavier than it looked, and Kou had to set it down quickly to keep it from slipping out of his sweaty grip. Breathing fast now, he pried off the lid with the tip of his pocketknife. There was liquid inside, something dark that shimmered and swirled with starry lights.

"This must be it," he said softly. The Water of Life... he'd really found it. Carefully, he removed two flasks and funnel from a pouch at his belt and carefully filled them both to the brim with dark sparkling water. He was interested but not very surprised to note that while the jar had been full to the brim when he'd started pouring, it was still just as full as before when he'd finished, even though both of his flasks were nearly as large as the jar was. Very carefully, he stoppered his flasks, set the jar back where he'd found it, and scampered downstairs again. The furry animal was still there, sprawled on its stomach with all four paws outstretched. Kou crept slowly past it. This time, though, he was so intent on not dropping his treasure that his foot caught on a crack in the floor, and he stumbled.

"Wha...? What was that?" the creature mumbled.

"Nothing. Just me," Kou stammered. "Thought I, um, left my coat here the other day." He tugged at the hem of his cloak, arranging it more securely over the bottles in his pouch. "Just leaving now."

"Oh. Okay," the creature mumbled, and went back to sleep.

"Whew," said Kou, as he slipped out the front door. One part - the easy part - was done. The real test was still to come.

 _I wish I had more time to experiment with this stuff,_ he thought, as he retreated to the shadows of some trees to contemplate his prize. He could feel the burning cold of the water even through the glass. It was without a doubt the most potent magical substance he'd ever handled, and the thought of the power it contained made him simultaneously terrified and curious. What couldn't he do with something like this at his disposal? He could be the most powerful sorcerer on earth, at least until the water ran out. It was tempting to set a little aside to work with further.

Yes, and tinkering with it too much could very well get him blown to bits. He reminded himself sternly why he'd never reached for too much power in the first place. Being too high-profile got you in trouble. No, all he needed to do with this stuff was the job he'd planned for, and that was it. He'd have all he could do just to manage that. He'd only get one shot at it, and there was no telling what would happen if he did it wrong.

The tricky part about dealing with the god of chance was that he protected himself naturally. If there was a danger, he'd simply arrange matters so that it didn't happen, or that he was somewhere else at the time. Even so, there was no chance at all that he'd simply leave and never come back to his brother, and that was what Kou was counting on. Very carefully, he began laying out his trap.

There were certain symbols you could use to trap spirits. Kou had used them before, when he'd lured Zundar and Hireashi to him and formed his pact with them. Usually, they involved drawing a circle in the ground, inscribing some mystic symbols around it, and placing a bit of bait in the middle. To catch something small, like an imp or one of the little nature spirits, you could generally manage with little more than a circle sketched in the dirt with a stick and a little honey or blood, depending on what you were angling for. A child with no magic at all could do it, if they made enough of an effort. For Kou's purpose today, the bait was the bathhouse itself, and the circle was made of the Water of Life. In this case, though, instead of creating a complete circle, he created a funnel, open on one end so that the little god could safely step into it, and the other end leading straight into his empty bottle, its insides still coated with the dark residue of the magical water. Kou made sure there were no other breaks in his circle, then pushed a few leaves over the bottle to hide it from view. Once everything was set, he used his finger to scratch a few runes into the ground, inscribing the purpose of his circle into it. He had just finished putting the finishing touches on his work when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. They were erratic, sometimes pattering on the hard-packed earth, sometimes veering off to crunch through the leaves, and Kou could guess what that meant. He quickly darted out of sight behind a thick oak tree to await developments.

Chance came bounding up the path, his arms full of wrapped parcels.

"Brother, are you home yet?" he shouted. "I have the cake, and... whoa!"

As soon as he stepped across the boundary of the circle, there was an unpleasant rushing noise, as if they were all about to be hit by an oncoming tidal wave. A blue-white sizzle like lightning flashed around the perimeter of the design Kou had drawn. Chance gave a cry of pain and dropped the parcels he was carrying, spilling cake and cookies everywhere. Then there was a hollow _pop_ like the cork coming out of a bottle, and the little god vanished from sight. Kou darted forward to snatch up his bottle and stuff in the stopper.

"Hey! Let me out!" piped a tiny voice inside.

"Not until we get home," said Kou. "You can last until then."

He shoved the bottle into his pocket and hastily kicked apart his spell before anything else could get caught in it. Then he turned to hurry back towards town. He had only gone a few paces, though, before he stopped and turned back.

"Almost forgot the most important part," he muttered to himself.

He walked back to the front of the bathhouse, took out a folded note, and pinned it firmly to the door with his knife. Satisfied that his message would be received, he turned and hurried back to town.

When he arrived at the inn, he found Tazawa just where he had left him. There were the remains of a meal and a half-empty mug next to him, along with a lot of paper.

"What do you think?" he asked, holding up one of his sketches. "I think this one came out best."

Distracted as Kou was, he took a moment to admire it. He had to admit, it was a more than fair likeness of the barkeeper.

"You did good," Kou assured him. "We were both very productive today."

"You're all done?" Tazawa asked. He looked rather pleased by the praise.

"All done with what I'm doing here, anyway," said Kou. "We can go home now."

"Good," said Tazawa. "Can I take my pictures with me?"

"Sure, if you want," said Kou. His hand went to the bottle hidden beneath his winter cloak. "Pretty soon, we can both have everything we want."


	4. Chaotic Comings and Goings

Sunlight slanted through the windows of Kinshiro's study. No matter what time of day it was, there was _always_ sunlight there. Time tended to be a bit flexible in the Heavenly City, so if Kinshiro wanted it to be daytime while he was working, that was what it would be. Arima approved of this. He would have been ever so slightly disappointed in the god he'd spent his life worshiping if he couldn't manage a little thing like lighting his study.

Just now, Arima was standing respectfully off to one side of Kinshiro's desk, watching him at work. Kinshiro and Atsushi sat side by side, going over the sheaf of notes that Arima had delivered to them a few moments before. After some deliberation, Kinshiro produced a crystal prism from a desk drawer and placed it squarely in the middle of a sunbeam. The light refracting through it projected an image on the wall - not a rainbow, but a moving picture of a young man working at a shop counter. Kinshiro and Atsushi watched him intently as he took a customer's money and made note of the sale in a ledger. After a few minutes, Kinshiro turned to look at his husband.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Atsushi shook his head sadly. "No good."

"I didn't think so," said Kinshiro. "Arima, make a note of it."

Arima dutifully noted down the verdict. The young man in question had run up some very high gambling debts, and was cheating his employer so that he could pay them off. He didn't know it yet, but he'd been on trial today, as the gods debated whether to send him the good fortune that would free him from his debts, or whether he would be punished for his thefts. Apparently, the god of mercy had not found him deserving. He would be caught at his cheating and suffer the consequences, and Arima would be there making sure it happened. He had a particular knack for punishing faithless employees and servants.

"I hate having to do this," said Atsushi gloomily. "Even when I know he deserves it."

"If he isn't stopped, he'll just keep cheating people," Kinshiro pointed out. "Besides, his employer would have loaned him the money, if he'd asked honestly. There was no need to cheat anyone."

"I know," said Atsushi, "but still."

Kinshiro smiled fondly. "You'll have plenty of opportunities to pardon wrongdoers, I'm sure. You can't save them all."

"I know," said Atsushi, and he mustered up a small smile.

The peaceful domestic scene was broken by an urgent knock on the door. Kinshiro shot a pointed look at Arima, who took the hint and went to answer it.

"Kinshiro is busy right now and can't be disturbed," he said as he opened the door.

He found himself facing a young woman he vaguely recognized as being one of Kinshiro's attendants. Kinshiro had a lot of attendants, and Arima hadn't had time to learn all their names yet. This one was looking harried - no, not just harried, but frightened. Arima wondered just what it was that could have upset her so.

"Please," she said. "Tell him he has to hurry. We need him in the Great Hall right away!"

Arima blinked. "Why? What's going on?"

"It's Fate," she said. "He's here."

There was a moment's pause. Then Arima said slowly, "You know, I think I could interrupt him for that."

A few minutes later, all three of them had made their way to the Great Hall. Arima was not surprised to see that a crowd had already gathered there. Many of the gods and their attendants were clustered worriedly at the lower tables. At the high table sat Fate. Arima stared at him. He'd only met the man once, when Atsushi had first become a god, but he'd formed the impression of a man who was very much in control of his life. And why not? Fate was the creator of the universe. If something was bothering him, he could probably arrange for it to have never existed in the first place. Now, though, he was giving a very good impression of a nervous wreck. He was raking his hands through his hair until it stood up in in all directions, and the whites showed all around his eyes. He looked like he was holding himself by sheer force of will alone, and any little jostle or loud noise would cause him to explode. Behind him, surprisingly, was En, making comforting gestures and saying things that Arima was too far away to hear.

 _Since when are those two close?_ Arima wondered. For that matter, when did En actually start taking initiative to do things that weren't actually part of his job description?

Kinshiro, of course, took the matter into his own hands. He strode briskly across the room, with Atsushi and Arima scampering in his wake, until they were all standing in front of the distraught god. Kinshiro took a breath as if preparing to demand explanations, took a closer look at Gora's pale and sweating face, and turned his attention to En instead.

"What in creation is going on?" he snapped.

In response, En wordlessly handed Kinshiro a scrap of paper. Arima craned his neck to read it over Kinshiro's shoulder. In finicky script, someone had written, "I have your brother. Agree to change my fate, or you'll never see him again. If you agree to my condition, have a lightning bolt strike the bell tower of the city hall in Wintertree." Arima blinked.

"Is someone actually trying to hold a god for ransom?" he exclaimed. "Who does that?"

"Someone with a death wish?" That was Ryuu coming up to investigate the situation, his two consorts close behind him.

"Never mind who," said Io. "I'm more concerned about _how_. How does a mortal trap a god?"

"There are ways," En muttered. Most of his attention was still fixed on comforting Gora. "Come on, take it easy. You're just making it worse."

Gora clenched his fists. "But Yumoto - he's missing. I can't find him..."

"Don't worry. He won't stay lost for long," said En. "He's never exactly been good at escaping notice."

Atsushi was frowning. "That doesn't make sense. Yumoto's a god. It isn't like you can just put him in a cage. How is it that anyone could trap him? Maybe they're just having you on, trying to bluff you."

"No." Gora shook his head. "I thought so too, at first, but then I checked my closet."

The others glanced at each other, but no further explanation seemed forthcoming. It was Akoya who had the nerve to ask, "What has your closet to do with anything?"

"I keep some things in there," said Gora. "You know, important things - a soul knife, a jar of stardust, a universe egg..."

Curiously, Atsushi asked, "You've got an egg with a universe in it?"

"Everything is in the egg," said Gora vaguely, "including the egg. It's hard to explain. That's not important anyway. The important thing is, I keep the jar with the Water of Life in there, and someone broke in and stole some."

"How much?" En asked, his expression sharpening.

"More than enough to hold my brother captive," said Gora. "That's what worries me. One of a lot of things that worry me. I have no idea what he's planning to do with the rest of it."

"How can you not know?" asked Ryuu. "You're _Fate_."

"I don't control everything, all right?" Gora snapped. "I give people free will. They still get to choose some things for themselves, or nothing they do would matter."

"Personally," said Io, "I'm more concerned about the fact that you left the Water of Life sitting around in your closet."

"We're getting off the subject!" Gora snapped. "The important thing is, someone has taken Yumoto and _I can't get him back!_ "

"Just calm down," said Kinshiro. "I can't imagine that a mere human would be able to hold someone like him captive for very long without being noticed."

"You don't understand," Gora groaned, hiding his face in his hands.

"I don't understand any of this," said Akoya. "Would someone please start making sense?"

"I'll explain," said En.

Everyone turned to look at him. He looked grimmer than Arima had ever seen him before. Usually, he was the most relaxed of gods, rarely showing any great emotion or exerting himself in any way he could help. It was easy to forget that in his own way, he was as ancient and powerful as any of the greatest gods. Just now, Arima looked into those cool blue eyes and had a sense of how much that placid facade had been concealing.

"Chance and Fate aren't meant to be separated," he said. "It's dangerous."

"Do you think this guy is going to hurt Yumoto?" Ryuu asked. "Seems kind of unlikely. I mean, even if he can be hurt with this Water of Life stuff, the guy isn't likely to endanger his hostage..."

"That isn't what I mean," said En. "I mean it's dangerous for _everybody_. Even us. Maybe especially us."

Kinshiro frowned. "Explain."

"It's like this," said En. "You know how some of us have different aspects, right? Sometimes Io is the god of wealth, and he's all in gold and jewels, but sometimes he's the god of death and he's all dark and foreboding and stuff. Sometimes Akoya's the god of beauty, and sometimes he's the god of spring. Well, Fate is like that, too. He has another aspect."

"If he does, this is the first I've heard of it," said Kinshiro skeptically.

"That's because he never shows it," said En. "Yumoto won't let him. That's the way it works. In the beginning, before there was anything in particular, there was Chaos. It was Yumoto who calmed him down and made him become Fate. As long as Yumoto is with him, he'll always be Fate, because Yumoto manipulates the chances and makes sure no circumstances that would make him go back to being Chaos ever come up. Without him around, who knows what's going to happen? The longer he's gone, the more likely it is that something is going to set this guy off and make him revert back to his original form. Especially if he's stressed out, which he obviously is. Do you guys understand how bad that would be?"

There was a grim silence.

 _It would be the end of the world,_ Arima realized, with dawning horror. Fate was the power that created them all and ruled them all. If he lost control of himself, he could wipe the gods out of existence and bring the Heavenly City tumbling down, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop him.

"Right," said Kinshiro, taking charge as always. "That means we need to get Chance back as soon as possible. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we can do that?"

"I can't find him," Gora moaned. "None of you are going to be able to find him. As long as he's sealed by the Water of Life, normal divine powers aren't going to work on him."

"With all due respect," said Kinshiro, "that is defeatist and I'm not going to listen to it. Does anyone _else_ have any suggestions?"

There was a moment of silence. For a while, Arima thought no one was going to say anything. Then, thoughtfully, Atsushi spoke up.

"En," he said, "do you have any idea where he might be?"

"Why would he..." Ryuu began.

En frowned. "I'm... pretty sure he's that way." He pointed somewhere vaguely downwards. Arima thought he looked as surprised by this information as everyone else.

Atsushi nodded decisively. "Then that's what we have to do. We have to follow En and get Yumoto back."

"Wait a moment," said Io. "How does En know where he is when none of the rest of us do? I don't recall that ability being in his skill set."

"He knows," said Gora. For the first time, he looked hopeful. "I gave him that gift, a long time ago, to always know where my brother and I are. I hadn't realized it would still work in a case like this, but if it does..."

"I thought it might," said Atsushi.

En nodded. "I've been exposed to the Water of Life so many times already, I've probably built up a tolerance."

Gora got to his feet and clasped En's hands.

"Please," he said, "find my brother and bring him back. If you don't..."

"All right, all right! Sheesh," said En, pulling his hands away. "Don't make a fool of yourself. I'll find the kid somehow."

"Thank you," said Gora. "I don't... I don't know how long I can hold out without him. I can already feel myself slipping..."

He _was_ slipping. Arima could see that clearly. When he had walked in, he had looked like a perfectly normal human man, wearing the sort of plain, practical clothing you'd expect a bathhouse owner to wear. Now his outlines were beginning to flicker, showing the regal white raiment of a god. And wasn't there something just a little wrong with that, too? It was hard to be sure, the way his edges seemed to shimmer and shift, but Arima thought he could make out traces of black creeping over the white like a dark mold. Arima shuddered.

 _It's happening so fast. We really don't have a lot of time..._

The thought made him cold. He'd been a priest once, and he'd had the deepest faith in his chosen god. The thought of the pantheon being wiped out and the Heavenly City being torn down and its foundations crushed was an abomination almost beyond his ability to comprehend. He couldn't even really think of it in terms of being destroyed himself, though he had no doubt it could happen. He was only a minor god, and couldn't hope to stand a chance against Fate - especially when the little god of chance was elsewhere. Even so, it was all too easy to imagine his beautiful new home being destroyed, his dear friends being cut down by their own creator... it made him sick to think about it.

"You shouldn't go alone," said Kinshiro to En. "My suggestion is that we draw lots to determine who among us is best suited to go on this quest."

"Why draw lots?" Io asked.

"Because," said Kinshiro simply, "it's the god of chance we need to find. If he still has any influence at all inside his prison, he'll be able to manipulate the probabilities to choose the ones who are most likely to be of help to him."

"Don't take too many," said Gora. "The more people who stay here, the more people there will be to... guard me, if I slip."

Kinshiro looked at him speculatively. "Will that help?"

"Yes," said Gora. "Each of you was created from my own essence. Enough of you working together can match my power, at least for a while. I just don't know how long that will be. I've been in this form for so long, there's a part of me that _wants_ to go back..."

"Oh, no, we're not doing that yet," said En sternly. He glared at Gora as if he thought he was making trouble on purpose. "Cool it."

He made a firm gesture, flicking one hand as if splashing water at someone. Gora froze in place, his eyes going unfocused. Then he slumped down where he stood and curled up on the ground, where he began to snore. The other gods looked impressed.

"That'll hold him for a little while," said En, "but I can't keep him that way forever. Even if he's losing his marbles right now, he's way too strong for me. The sooner we straighten this out the better. I guess that means we'd better decide who's going and hit the road."

"Do that," said Kinshiro. "Meanwhile, I will rally all those who are fit to do battle and tell them to stand guard."

Io said, "Not everyone in this city is a fighter, though. Please tell anyone who doesn't think they can stand up to a fight that they are welcome to take refuge in my home. They'll be safe longer there than anywhere else."

Arima was a bit surprised. Io wasn't a bad man, but he was hardly noted for his extravagant generosity. Clearly he felt that this was a situation that called for drastic measures.

"I will do that," said Kinshiro solemnly. "Arima, start rounding up my attendants and spread the word. Make sure everyone in the city knows that they should either gird themselves for a fight, or that they should tell their priests that war is brewing among the gods, and then retreat to the safety of the underworld."

Arima bowed. "It will be done, my lord," he replied.

He left the great hall, mind in a whirl. Everything had seemed so peaceful just a short while ago. Now they were all looking at the end of everything, all because of one over-ambitious human.

 _Please don't let it end like this,_ he thought, and for once, he had no idea who he was praying to.

* * *

The results of the lottery had been announced. Ryuu reflected that life was very unfair. For some people, winning a draw meant they would get something nice. For him, it meant striking out into the unknown with a cranky god of sleep to look for someone who had figured out how to overpower a god.

"Look at it this way," said Io. "At least this means no one will expect you to stay here and fight."

Ryuu scowled. "You sure know how to look on the bright side."

He, Io, and Akoya had retreated to his rooms to talk about what was going to happen next. They were calling it planning because none of them wanted to think about it in terms of saying goodbye.

"I'm sure there's a reason why you were selected," said Akoya, his voice composed. Only someone who had known him as long as Ryuu had would have detected the strain in his manner. "No one expected you to stay here and fight, anyway. As you are so fond of saying, you are a lover, not a fighter."

"Yeah, but I don't know that I'm much of a quester, either," said Ryuu. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Oh, what the hell. I'll admit it - I really just hate leaving you guys behind."

"Don't worry about us," said Io. "We'll be fine. I have faith in you. You'll find Yumoto and bring him back safely, and we'll be waiting for you when you return. Akoya and I will be safe in the underworld until then."

"Maybe you will," said Akoya, "but I won't."

Both Ryuu and Io turned to look at him.

"What do you mean?" Ryuu asked.

"I mean," said Akoya calmly, "that I intend to stay here and defend the city."

"You can't," Ryuu blurted. "It's too dangerous."

"I'm sure it will be dangerous," said Akoya, "but that does not change the fact that I need to stay. If someone doesn't stay to fight, then there will be no one to stop Chaos from tearing the city apart, and then moving on to earth and down into the underworlds, and then no one will be safe. I'm the most able fighter of the three of us." He smiled. "I know I used to be human, and I'm far younger than you, and I know I am vain and fond of pretty things. I don't blame you for treating me as a sort of pet from time to time. I don't even mind it. I like being pampered and fussed over. That does not mean that I can't look out for myself."

"Well, sure," said Ryuu, trying to repress a grimace. Akoya had them pegged, all right. It was so easy to forget that just because Akoya couldn't walk past a reflective surface without turning his head to admire himself, that didn't make him a fool. He might look soft and fluffy, but many ways, he was the most powerful of the three of them. "It's just, well... you could get hurt. I mean, _really_ hurt."

"I was human once. I haven't forgotten that," said Akoya, still calm. "The difference between you and me is that I grew up knowing that I was always at risk of becoming sick or injured or dying. One becomes used to that, when one is human."

"True," said Io, "but when you are human, you know you'll go to the underworld you've earned, or be reincarnated, or become an attendant to the gods. If this goes wrong, you'll just be... gone."

"It's a risk I'm willing to take," said Akoya. "Don't you understand? This is my _home_ , the only real home I've ever had. My family is here. My friends are here. _You're_ here. I've been happy here, when I was never happy anywhere else. I am not losing all I've gained just because some foolish god can't keep his closet organized."

Ryuu couldn't help it: he burst out laughing. Akoya had some truly monumental closets. Whole families could probably live in them, and Ryuu had no doubt that Akoya knew the precise location of every last slipper and scarf. If Gora had entrusted the Water of Life into Akoya's keeping, this never would have become a problem.

Akoya gave him a small smile. "Besides, if one of us goes into danger, it should be me. You two were happy together long before I got here, but I was never happy without you."

"Akoya..." Ryuu stepped forward and folded him into his arms, and Io followed Ryuu's example. All three of them stood there for a while, holding each other tightly. Ryuu sniffled a little.

"I will make it home," he promised them. "You wait and see - I'll drag Yumoto home by his ankles if I have to, and then you guys had better show me some proper gratitude."

"We'll talk about it when you get back," said Io, his voice gruff.

"We will," Akoya agreed.

Io stepped back a little, enough to get his hands free, and made a flourish. A mirror appeared in his hands. Most of the time, when he did his conjuring-things trick, the results were fantastically gaudy, but this one was remarkably simple by his standards - just a simple gold frame with a bit of scrollwork around the edges. The whole thing was small enough to fit comfortably in a pocket.

"Here," he said, passing it to Ryuu. "So you can keep an eye on us while you're away."

Akoya mustered a smile. "It will remind you of both of us."

"I won't need reminding," said Ryuu, slipping the mirror under his robe, "but thanks anyway. I'll check in every chance I get."

He searched for something else to say, but really, what was there? There was nothing he could say that would make them come with him, and nothing that would make him able to stay. There was nothing he could say that would fill the gulf that walking away from them would leave.

 _This isn't fair. We're gods. We should be able to stay together forever. There never should have been a chance that any of us could die..._

"I guess I'd better get going," he asked, after an uncomfortable pause. "Don't worry, guys - I'll be back almost before you realize I'm gone."

"We'll notice," said Io. "But go on. The sooner you leave, the sooner we'll have this all wrapped up."

Ryuu nodded. He wanted to give them one last embrace, but he knew if he started down that road, he'd just keep thinking of reasons to put off his departure. Instead, he turned and walked resolutely towards the door.

Ryuu had never done well in isolation. He'd never felt so alone in his life.

* * *

Making the transition from human to god had not been entirely easy on Atsushi. He was by nature humble, and being handed such status had felt unnatural to him. He was getting used to it slowly, but sometimes he still found himself slightly bemused by the life he'd landed in. He had learned to love the Heavenly City and the beautiful palace that surmounted it, but it was still strange and awe-inspiring, and sometimes he found himself wondering if he really belonged there.

But he truly did love his rooms.

The first time Kinshiro had opened a door and said, "And this will be your room," in his matter-of-fact way, Atsushi had been thrilled. In the midst of splendor, here was simple comfort: simple white walls and natural wood, sturdy furniture with overstuffed cushions, a handsome river-rock fireplace, and intricate quilts hung on the walls. Deeper into the suite, there was a truly marvelous kitchen stocked with every cooking implement and ingredient he could possibly desire. The palace would readily provide him with any meal he asked for, and the tables in the great hall produced an ever-changing array of delicacies, but he still enjoyed cooking his own meals. There were some dishes Kinshiro would only eat if Atsushi had prepared them himself.

What had thrilled him the most, though, was the first time he'd opened a door connected to his new bedroom and discovered a library. He'd always loved to read, but his small village had not been able to produce a steady supply of books, and it was only on the quietest nights that he had the leisure to read at all. But here, suddenly, was a room all his own, filled floor to ceiling with shelves of books, with just enough space left over for a great fluffy armchair, exactly the right size for him to curl up in and read. Those shelves were a constant source of wonder to him, even now. He'd been working his way through them for the last three-quarters of a century or so, and he was still turning up titles he hadn't read yet. Some of the best hours of his immortal life had been spent in front of the fireplace, with him and Kinshiro taking turns reading to each other.

Atsushi sighed a little. He wished he was there to read today.

Instead, he picked his way to the back of the room to a small desk. It was piled with writing papers, bottles of ink, pens, and other useful implements for someone who wanted to make notes or jot down ideas. There was also a locked drawer underneath it. Atsushi touched the handle, and it clicked gently before sliding open under its own power. Inside rested a single object: a small slim book, bound in dark brown leather. The gilt lettering on the cover read simply, _Inquiry_. Atsushi picked it up. It tingled in his hand. This was no ordinary book: it had been given to him as a wedding present by Fate himself. All gods had their weapons, Gora had told him, but Atsushi was the god of mercy, and that made him a defender, not an attacker. Hence, Atsushi's weapon was that of knowledge. For all its small size, this book contained a limitless treasure trove of information. Finding the information he wanted took a certain amount of work, but it had helped him puzzle through sticky situations before.

 _Never as sticky as this, though,_ he thought, as he leafed through the book's pages. They were blank at the moment, responding to his confusion. They wouldn't show him anything until he had a clear question in mind. _I'm not even sure it will still work if Fate himself is out of commission._ Still, he didn't have anything else to rely on.

 _I wonder why the lottery chose me,_ he pondered, as he regretfully left his library behind. _Was it just random, or did Yumoto really think he'd need me for something? And what can I do? I can't imagine what a god of mercy and hospitality has to do with a kidnapping._

Still, Yumoto was his friend. He'd been Atsushi's friend longer than even Kinshiro and En had. If there was a way he could help him, Atsushi was going to do it.

That didn't mean he was going to like it. Well, that wasn't quite true - he didn't mind doing what he could to help. What he minded was going away and leaving so many of his friends behind. He'd have felt much better about this journey if Kinshiro had been there beside him, with his golden arrows and logical mind. En was a good companion, but not the first person Atsushi would think of calling on in an emergency. He held tight to the idea that he and Ryuu had been selected for a reason, even if it was a reason he couldn't see clearly at the moment.

 _I suppose even gods need some faith once in a while._

Tucking his book into a pocket, he started for the connecting door that led from his rooms to Kinshiro's. He thought it was a bit odd, at first, to find that even married gods maintained separate living quarters, but after nearly a century of living together, he'd concluded that everyone needed a little personal space once in a while. Atsushi certainly had needed those few moments in the library to pull himself together, and when he stepped into Kinshiro's study, he found that Kinshiro had been using his time effectively, too. He was in the midst of a serious conversation with Arima, but he looked up when Atsushi stepped into the room.

"All prepared?" he asked. His delivery was matter-of-fact, but Atsushi could see the concern in his eyes.

"As much as I can be," Atsushi replied. "What about you?"

"I'm staying here to lead the defenses," said Kinshiro. "Order is the antithesis of chaos. I stand a chance of keeping him contained if anyone does." With a gesture to his companion, he added, "Arima is helping me organize the retreat of the noncombatants. I want everyone who isn't planning on fighting out of here before Chaos wakes up again."

Arima nodded, his usually cheerful face grim. "I've been passing the orders along to his attendants already. I estimate that at least half the population of the city is already on its way to the underworld."

Atsushi tried not to let his dismay show. Of course, most of the city's population was made up of people who weren't gods, or were only gods by the merest technicality: all the little nature spirits and crossroads gods. They'd be helpless in the face of something as powerful as Chaos. Still, Atsushi had hoped for more.

"I'll be staying, of course," Arima continued.

Kinshiro's face hardened. Atsushi got the feeling that this was an argument that had been going on for some time already.

"I can't allow it," said Kinshiro. "It's too dangerous."

"I have to," said Arima. "I pledged my life to you. That hasn't changed just because I've gotten a promotion." His expression softened a little. "Besides, you and Atsushi are my friends. I can't do anything for him, but I can stay here and help you. My place is by your side."

Atsushi turned to Kinshiro. "Go on, let him stay. I feel bad enough about leaving you behind already. I'll feel better if I know he's here watching your back."

Kinshiro looked from one to the other with consternation.

"I hate it when you two gang up on me," he complained. "I'm supposed to be in charge here."

Arima smiled, knowing he'd won.

"Both of you be safe, okay?" said Atsushi. "I'll be home as quick as I can."

"You be safe, too," said Kinshiro. He was good at keeping his expression neutral, but Atsushi could see the worry in his eyes. "This person who took Scarlet... well, anyone who can kidnap a god is dangerous, even to one of us. Don't take any unnecessary risks."

Atsushi nodded. He embraced his husband, and felt Arima reach out to put his arms around the both of them. For a moment, at least, Atsushi let himself feel safe, pressed close to people who cared about him.

"I'd better go," he said. "The others will be waiting for me."

"We'll walk with you," said Kinshiro. "At least as far as the great hall."

Atsushi didn't argue. If it would give them both some comfort, why try to stop them? It would surely comfort him.

They walked in silence, clustered closely to each other. If they'd wanted to, they all could have simply appeared in the great hall in the blink of an eye, but none of them seemed to want to separate just yet, so they walked. The palace seemed oddly silent. Already its inhabitants were clearing out, either heading for safety or getting ready to secure a perimeter. Atsushi had never realized how full of activity the place usually was, until now, when it all went away. It was almost a relief to reach the great hall. Those among the gods who had agreed to stand and fight were arrayed around the walls, warily watching the sleeping man at the head table. His outline continued to flicker, and he twitched uneasily as he dreamed, but his clothing was showing more black now and less white. Time was running out. Ryuu was already there, watching Gora uneasily, but there was no sign of En.

"Late as usual," Kinshiro muttered. Atsushi wanted to correct him, but decided that his husband was under enough strain already and let it pass.

"Hey," said Ryuu. "What took you guys?"

"Just getting ready," said Atsushi. "Where's En?"

"Figured he'd be with you," said Ryuu. He looked down at the sleeping god. "Sure hope he gets here soon. This guy's getting restless."

"I'm sure he'll..." Atsushi began.

There was a _pop_ , and a brief whiff of vanilla and lavender as En flashed into view. A few of the gods lining the walls reached reflexively for their weapons. Kinshiro glared at him.

"And just where have you been?" he demanded.

For once, En looked a little annoyed by Kinshiro's needling.

"Triangulating," he said. "I went to a few different spots on Earth, trying to get a clearer fix on where Scarlet is. Figured it would save time." He mustered up a glare. "What, did you really think I'd slack off at a time like this? I don't want to die either, you know."

Kinshiro gave a grunt that was half-apology and half, "Well, how should I have known that?"

"Good, so we're all here, and we know where we're going," said Ryuu briskly, before there could be an argument. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"A kingdom called Pineridge," said En.

"Huh. Pineridge," said Ryuu thoughtfully. "I think I know the place. Io blighted them a while back, after some king a few generations back decided that he needed to tear down the temples to Sulfur. Something about avarice being a vice and people being too caught up in mercenary pursuits to appreciate the finer things in life. As if anyone has time to write poetry when they don't have enough money to buy food." He scowled, clearly offended on his consort's behalf.

Kinshiro frowned. "If this is because someone is trying to undo that blight..."

"Don't see how it could be," said Ryuu. "I mean, if they want to get back on Io's good side, they ought to just apologize and make a few offerings, maybe set him up a shrine somewhere. They didn't have to do all of this."

Kinshiro still looked somewhat unconvinced. There could have been an argument at that point, but before that could happen, Gora gave a sort of full-body shudder, clenching his fists and scrunching his face as if something pained him. En winced.

"I'm losing him!" he shouted.

The guards around the wall moved in closer. Slowly, Gora opened his eyes. They glowed a brilliant red, and his clothes were now black as night.

"This place," he said. His voice was soft, but there were strange echoes and scrapes in it that had not been there before. "Why am I in this place? It's been here too long. Nothing should stay standing this long." He reached for his axe, which had fallen on the floor beside him. When his hand touched it, what had once been a sensible piece of metal, suitable for chopping wood, expanded into an immense halberd longer than he was tall. He handled it as if it weighed no more than a toothpick. His wild red eyes surveyed the golden walls around him. "It all needs to come down!"

What followed seemed to Atsushi to happen in slow motion. Gora raised his axe high above his head. The assembled warriors moved forwards, perhaps hoping to intercept him, but their movements were slowed by shock and fear. En grabbed Atsushi with one hand and Ryuu with the other.

"Time to go!" he said, his voice authoritative.

Atsushi had just enough time to see Gora lash out with his axe, sending a shockwave out that made one wall of the room crumble. He saw the look of fear and determination flash across Kinshiro's face, heard him shout, "Go! I'll deal with this!"

Then the scents of lavender and vanilla closed around him, and the palace of the gods winked out.


	5. Foundations of Faith

The prince wandered through the door of the tack room and began putting away saddles and bridles. In his quiet way, he was glad to be home. Traveling had been nice, but he truly loved his kingdom. His brothers and sisters and other miscellaneous relatives might all want to get out as soon as an opportunity came up, but intended to stay put as long as he could. Kou had promised him he would be king someday. He sometimes wondered if he might end up with the job just because no one else wanted it.

One of the guardsmen who had been hanging around chatting brushed past him on his way back inside the palace. Their shoulders collided hard enough that Tazawa was knocked backwards a few steps. The guard smirked.

"Huh, it felt like I walked into something," he said loudly. "But I couldn't have, because there's nothing here, is there?"

His friends sniggered. Tazawa sighed.

"I'm here," he said.

The guard gave him a look of exaggerated surprise. "Oh, what's this? I didn't see you there. Maybe if you weren't so _completely insignificant_..."

Then again, Tazawa mused, there were times when he wondered if becoming king would be worth the effort. Who would listen to him?

"What are you doing in here, anyway?" one of the other guards asked, sidling over to join his friend. Slowly but surely, they were all making a ring around him, blocking him from reaching the door. "It's not like you to come out of your nice safe room."

"I went on a trip," he mumbled.

"Really? I don't think anyone noticed," the guard sneered. "Maybe you should have stayed where you were."

Tazawa said nothing. This was how it had always been with him. It didn't seem to matter that he was a prince - if anything, it seemed to encourage people, as if putting him down somehow made people feel as though they were royalty themselves. If he'd ever been respected for his title, it had been only up until the point when he'd first started his physical training and everyone had realized that he was weak and uncoordinated and easily intimidated. No one was actually going to _hurt_ him, because that would get them in trouble with the king no matter what excuse they used, but they had figured out pretty quickly that he wasn't good at coming up with retorts. He wasn't good at talking at all, and so they could insult him freely without any fear that he'd even do so much as insult them back.

"Where were you, anyway?" one of them asked. "I didn't think you had the stamina to walk to the city gates and back, much less go on a real journey. Are you sure you didn't just lock yourself in a closet for a week?"

"He was with me," a voice cut in. "Is that a problem?"

The guards backed away guiltily. Tazawa smiled.

"I was just putting our stuff away," he said, waving towards the saddles he'd been hanging up.

"I know what you were doing," said Kou. His gaze swept across the assembled men, who were now looking sheepishly down at their shoes. Kou had never _actually_ turned anyone into a frog, but if he ever did, it would be because someone had been picking on Tazawa and he'd caught them at it. "I'm just checking to make sure there are no problems here."

"No problems, sir," said one of the guards. "Just having a nice little chat."'

"I'll bet," said Kou. "To answer your question, Tazawa was with me, helping me with an errand I had to run. Now he's going to continue to help me upstairs in my workroom. If any of you interfere with us, I'll turn you into part of my experiment, do I make myself clear?"

Kou had apparently made himself very clear. The guards all suddenly remembered urgent errands elsewhere and scampered away, muttering excuses.

"Good riddance," Kou muttered. "Thick-headed bullies. You shouldn't let them mess with you like that. Stand up to them!"

"I don't mind them," said Tazawa, and in a way, it was true. He didn't mind people messing with him, because it reminded him that there was also someone who would stand up to them.

"Well, _I_ mind," said Kou.

"It's okay," said Tazawa. "They don't bother me. You'll always be here to bail me out, right?"

Kou's catlike face split into a wide grin. "You bet I will. Now come on. I'm ready to get the next part of this plan underway."

Tazawa smiled and followed after his friend, his good mood fully restored. He still wasn't quite sure what this business was all about, but he wasn't worried. As long as he had Kou to look after him, he was sure everything would be just fine.

* * *

Kou contemplated the sight that was sitting in the middle of his floor. He had released Scarlet from his captivity inside the bottle - after all, Kou considered himself to be a reasonable person, and he certainly wasn't heartless enough to keep someone in a bottle when they didn't need to be. Instead, he'd placed the bottle in the middle of his summoning circle, put a ring of the Water of Life around the edges of his diagram, and then smashed the bottle. For the first few minutes, the little god had flailed around and kicked up a fuss, until Kou had worried that even despite his orders, someone would come in to see what all the fuss was about. Now, having realized he couldn't escape the ring, he was merely sitting and looking profoundly sulky.

"Are you sure that's a god?" asked Tazawa. "He doesn't look much like a god to me."

"Well, of course not," said Kou reasonably. "He's a god. They can look like anything they like, more or less. Anyway, if he wasn't a god, he could walk across the line I drew, and he can't, so that means he is."

"Oh," said Tazawa. His tone said he didn't quite follow, but if Kou said it was so then he was willing to believe him.

Scarlet raised his odd reddish eyes to peer at both of them, a childish scowl fixed on his face.

"You two had better let me go before my big brother gets mad," he said.

"Oh, he knows you're here," said Kou. He stepped closer, getting a better look at his prize. "You know, it interests me. How is it that you two think of yourselves as brothers? You don't have any parents, so how can you be brothers?"

Yumoto scowled. "Because. He _is_."

"That makes no sense," said Kou. "Honestly, I begin to wonder if _you're_ the one who should have been called Chaos."

"Don't joke about that. It's not funny," said Scarlet. "Seriously, you should let me go. If you let me go before he finds out I'm gone, probably nothing bad will happen."

"Yes, something will," said Kou. "I know it will. It was my New Year's dream. That's exactly why I'm doing this in the first place. I need your brother to change my fate, and I know he doesn't change his mind without a good reason."

"But you don't understand!" Yumoto protested. "If I'm away from Brother too long, he'll..."

"Revert to his Chaos form, yes, I've heard," said Kou. "And that's the form I want. Chaos changes things. Either your brother agrees to help me, or he stops being Fate altogether and lets me control my own destiny. Either way, I win."

Scarlet gave him a long, measuring look.

"Hey, I remember you," he said. "Didn't you used to be a demon in your previous incarnation?"

Kou scowled at him. "How should I know that? You gods are the ones who decided people can't remember their previous incarnations. Honestly, I'm starting to think I know more about your universe than you do." Privately, he was not at all sure he liked the idea of having been a demon in a previous incarnation. It either had to mean that he'd once been an annoying little imp like Zundar and Hireashi, or that he'd once been a great deal more powerful than he was now, and had been given a royal set-down. Neither idea was particularly flattering.

"You really don't understand, though," Scarlet insisted. "No one can control Chaos except me. Once he goes that far, he won't remember why he got that way. Something really bad could happen while I'm stuck in here."

"Then he'd better hurry up," said Kou implacably. There were gods, he knew, who couldn't or wouldn't lie, but Scarlet wasn't one of them. He was one of the creators of the universe. Reality was, to him, more or less a matter of convenience.

"Well, okay," said Scarlet, "but don't say I didn't warn you."

"Your caution is duly noted," said Kou airily. "Don't worry. I'm sure you won't have to wait long."

Scarlet did not look comforted. "This stinks! This really stinks! I'm stuck here in this stupid room, and my brother's going to be really worried, and I didn't even get to eat my cake!"

"You don't need cake," Kou pointed out. "You're a god. You don't need to eat."

"I don't care! I want cake!"

Kou rolled his eyes. To Tazawa, he said, "Don't we have any cake? Maybe it will keep him quiet for a while."

Tazawa ran a thoughtful hand through his long hair. "I guess we have cake."

He drifted off, presumably, though not by any means definitely, in search of cake. Kou sighed. At least it would probably keep him out of the way for a while, occupied if not _usefully_ occupied. There were days when even Kou in all his cleverness couldn't tell what Tazawa was thinking.

"Who was that guy?" asked Scarlet. He appeared to have been somewhat mollified by the potential for cake.

"That was Tazawa," said Kou. Then, remembering his manners, he added, " _Prince_ Masuya Tazawa."

"Oh," said Scarlet. "So maybe this wasn't all your idea, then? You're doing it because the prince told you to?"

"Of course not," Kou scoffed. "He's not that kind of person. He could barely plot to put on his clothes in the morning without someone telling him what to do. That's why I have to look after him."

"He's your friend, then?" Scarlet asked.

Kou felt his cheeks flush. "No more stupid questions. You can leave him out of this."

"But he isn't out of this. He's right here. Well, he's getting cake, but he'll be back," Yumoto pointed out. "If he's not the kind of person to be doing this, then why is he doing it?"

"He's not. I am," Kou snapped. "And I'm not answering any more questions from you. Just be quiet and wait for your stupid cake."

Scarlet said nothing. He appeared to be thinking hard. Well, good. Whatever was on his mind, it was no concern of Kou's.

 _I should have left him in the bottle,_ he thought.

* * *

When Atsushi came to himself again, he was standing in the middle of a pine forest. Snow lay thickly on the ground, and the air was sharp with the smell of it. High above his head, he could hear the slow creak and swish of wind in the branches, but down where he was, the trees took away its teeth. As far as he was concerned, it was a lovely midwinter day.

Which probably meant it was freezing from a human perspective, but that was the one thing none of them had to worry about at the moment.

"So this is Pineridge," Ryuu remarked, looking around. "It looks... very pine-y."

"No wisecracks," said En. "I didn't want to put us down too close to humans. We don't want to get noticed, right?"

"We aren't gonna get noticed," said Ryuu impatiently. "We're gods! We're invisible!"

"Yeah, and Scarlet is a god, too, but that didn't stop him from getting caught," said En.

Atsushi nodded. "He's right. Kinshiro warned me. We don't know what we're up against, so until we do, we should be careful. I think we should probably not use too much of our powers unless it's absolutely necessary."

Ryuu turned the idea over in his mind. "All righty, then. I guess I can pretend to be human for a while. It ain't like I've never done it before."

His outline wavered. He seemed to dull and dwindle, damping down the fire of his powers. In the time it took to blink, he went from being a god to being simply a good-looking young man. He was dressed in leggings, tunic, and tall boots, all brightly dyed but faded and travel-stained - the traditional uniform of a traveling minstrel. A stringed instrument of some sort was slung casually over his back.

"Can you actually play that thing?" En asked.

"Well, sure," said Ryuu. "It's one of my secondary abilities. Mr. Wine, Women, and Song, that's me."

"Except you don't have too many women in your life lately," En pointed out.

Ryuu grinned. "Well, sometimes just for fun, Akoya and Io will..."

"Please, can we stay focused?" Atsuhi cut in.

"Sure. Sorry," said Ryuu. He did not look apologetic.

Atsushi shrugged it off. He had never expected any shame from Ryuu. Instead, he focused his attention on his own disguise. At least that was easy - he had plenty of experience being human. After thinking about it for a second or two, he selected the sort of clothing he remembered the down-on-their-luck merchants used to wear when they stayed at his inn, well-cut but made of cheap material and a little threadbare around the edges. En shifted into the guise Atsushi remembered from the first time they'd met: the well-worn robes of an itinerant priest.

"Think we'll pass muster?" Ryuu asked.

Atsushi nodded. A minstrel, a priest, and a merchant were all the sort of people one might expect to find wandering the roads, even in the wintertime. Atsushi made a gesture and tossed them both cloaks and packs pulled from nowhere in particular. Food and warmth came under the heading of "hospitality", and by now he'd had some practice at conveniently turning up to rescue people who were lost in the snow each winter.

"Here," he said. "People are going to wonder why we don't freeze if we don't get coats on."

"I really don't spend enough time as a human," En said, and pulled his cloak on.

"Well, now's your chance to get back in the habit," said Ryuu. "Come on. Which way are we going?"

En pointed. "That way. Towards the capital."

"Makes sense," said Atsuhi. Anyone with the ability to do a thing like this would probably gravitate to the local seat of power, such as it was in a little place like this.

The three of them began trudging grimly through the snow. None of them was in good spirits, making what might have otherwise been a pleasant stroll into an awkward slog. En was clearly displeased about the entire situation, and kept muttering under his breath about having to wander around in the snow forever. Ryuu wasn't saying anything, but Atsushi guessed that he must be worried about Akoya and Io. Seeking some sort of direction, Atsushi took _Inquiry_ out of his pocket and began leafing through it. It was a relief to see words written across its pages now. At least having Fate out of whack wasn't noticeably affecting his book. Atsushi read its pages, searching for a clue.

"Whatcha readin'?" En asked, glancing back at Atsushi.

"Oh, ah..." Atsushi scrambled ahead, realizing that he'd been falling behind the other two while he read. "Just this book."

"You brought a book?" Ryuu asked. "What for?"

"It's a special book," Atsushi explained. "Sometimes it gives me information, but... well, it's kind of like trying to have a conversation with Yumoto. He knows a lot of things, but getting him to tell them to you in a way you'll understand..."

"Got it," said Ryuu. "So what's it say? I could use a distraction."

"It's telling me fairy tales," said Atushi, "and that's really confusing me, because it's doing it wrong."

En blinked. "Come again?"

"Okay. Do you know the story of the wishing fish?" Atsushi asked.

Ryuu scowled. "I know more than I want to about wishing fish."

"I know that one," said En. "It's the one with the fisherman. And the fish."

"You know, En," said Ryuu, "you're probably right. The story of the wishing fish probably has a fish in it."

"Right," said En, unoffended. "There was this fisherman, and he caught a fish, and it said that if he let it go it would grant him a wish, but he just threw it in without asking for anything because he was just that nice a guy. Then he told his wife about it, and she said he should have wished that they not be poor and have a nice house to live in, so he went back and caught it and asked for that. But then she still wasn't happy - she wanted to be rich and have a big mansion with servants, and then to be the mayor, and then the king, and all the way up to wishing to be a god. That's the one you mean, right?"

"That's the one," Atsushi agreed. "In the original story, it ended with the fish refusing to grant the wife's last wish, and the fisherman instead wishing that she would just be happy with what they'd always had."

"Right, I get it," said Ryuu. "A nice little moral story. What's your book telling you different?"

"Well, it's almost the same story," said Atsushi, "except in this version, the wife doesn't ask for anything. It's all the fisherman wanting more and more things. The wife never asked for anything."

"Huh," said En. "That's weird. How does your version end?"

Atsushi flipped a few pages ahead. "It doesn't. The story stops with the man wishing for his wife to become a god. I guess we don't need to know that part."

"Not yet, anyway," said En. "Oh, look, there's the city. It's about time. My feet are wet."

"Shouldn't have worn sandals in the snow," said Ryuu. "You could have at least worn boots."

En raised his chin. "Whoever heard of a priest in boots?"

They struck the main road at last, and found it relatively free of snow, so they picked up their pace. Even if the cold didn't bother them particularly, they were all eager to be making some sort of progress. The city looked small from a distance, and Atsushi fully expected it to look more impressive as they drew nearer, but reaching the gates left him distinctly underwhelmed. He'd grown up in a small town, and felt comfortable in such places. This was a small town that had once been a large town. He could see the remains of structures that had once stood there, now little more than a few crumbling walls that had been turned into the boundaries of animal pens or just left as a fading monument to past prosperity. Those buildings still standing had a faded look about them, as though the effort of taking care of them was simply too much. Paint had flaked or faded, shingles were falling off, thatch was moldering, walls showed signs of cracks and hasty repair.

 _This place really is blighted,_ Atsushi thought. Binan might have been tiny, back when he lived there, but its people had been proud of it and taken good care of it. This place, he felt, was suffering a slow death by apathy. No one was really pleased to be here, and would be glad of any excuse to pull up stakes and go somewhere else.

"So where are we heading now?" Ryuu asked.

En paused in the shadow of a rickety dry goods shop with a few faded bolts of cloth in its front window.

"Hard to say," he said. "We're close - practically on top of him - but I'm having trouble keeping a fix on him. I think it's partly because he and Gora aren't together, and partly because of that stupid Water of Life. He's usually not sitting in the middle of the stuff when I try to find him, and he and his brother usually aren't on totally separate planes of existence."

"Great," said Ryuu. "So now what do we do?"

"Well," said Atsushi thoughtfully, "there's bound to be an inn around here somewhere."

"Okay, I like inns," said Ryuu. "Why are we going there, though? I mean, I'd love it if we had time for a few drinks, but seeing as we don't..."

En rolled his eyes. "He means we need to talk to people."

Atsushi nodded. "I know all about how people gather in inns and public rooms. We need to chat with the locals and see if something interesting has been going on lately. I can't imagine someone has managed to kidnap a god without causing some sort of stir."

"Okay, makes sense," said Ryuu. "So let's find an inn."

It didn't take them long to find it. The building was one of the few they saw that was still in relatively good repair, perhaps because it was still getting regular business from outsiders. No one paid any attention as the mismatched trio as they shuffled in, stamping snow off their shoes, and scattered to different parts of the room. En went to claim a seat at one of the tables. Atsushi slid onto a bar stool and ordered a mug of the local specialty. Ryuu took the customary place of a bard by the fireplace, unslung his lute, and began playing a mildly risque ballad about a beautiful herbalist using her feminine charms to persuade a dryad to teach her the secrets of the forest. The crowd seemed to approve of this choice, and moved in closer to listen.

 _I guess he really can play,_ thought Atsushi.

He ordered a drink from the tired-looking barman and took a cautious sip. His inn, he decided, had served better beer. He resisted the temptation to make a few surreptitious improvements, and had to smile at himself. Perhaps he was getting a bit spoiled by being a god for so long.

 _Mind on business,_ he told himself, and settled in to do a bit of eavesdropping. At least that was something gods were good at. Atsushi had plenty of experience in getting his news by overhearing conversations in bars, but gods had the trick of listening to human thoughts. Atsushi didn't do it very often, not unless he had a good reason, but if this wasn't a good reason, he didn't know what was.

For a while, nothing of interest came up. En chatted with a few of the locals. Ryuu finished his first song, receiving hearty applause. Apparently emboldened, he began a new song, this one a raunchy drinking song celebrating the manifold abilities and attributes of the great god Vesta. Atsushi wondered if this wasn't getting a little too close to the mark, but apparently this was a favorite of the locals. They joined in loudly with every chorus. Atsushi did his best to tune it all out and instead focus on the thoughts of those around him. Crops... trade... weather... marital problems... Atsushi was just about ready to give up when something flickered through the mind of a man at a nearby table. Atsushi sent a mental message to En: _Talk to that guy in the blue hat. Something about a wizard._

En didn't reply, but after a moment, he changed seats, ostensibly to get away from the racket made by a lot of noisy drunken singers, but it put him closer to the man in the blue hat. The two of them began chatting. Atsushi tried not to look as if he were paying too much attention, but the occasional phrase still managed to reach his ears. There was definitely a wizard involved, and a journey, and something about a prince. It was the most promising lead they'd heard all afternoon, and he hoped desperately it would pay off.

After a few minutes, Ryuu finished his song, took a bow, and went to fetch a drink at the bar, just as one of the other patrons slid off the stool next to Atsushi. Ryuu sat down next to him and called for a beer. A moment later, En said goodbye to his friend and sat down on Atsushi's other side.

"I think we've got what we came from," said En. "Thanks for the tip."

"So we're leaving?" Ryuu asked. "I was just starting to have fun." He jangled a pocketful of coins his audience had tossed him. "And I've got presents for Io when I get home. He's going to love me for this."

Then his face fell, and Atsushi guessed that Ryuu had remembered where the rest of their friends were.

"We're leaving," Atsushi assured him.

They stepped outside the inn. The sky, which had been clear and blue a little while ago, was starting to cloud over, and the wind was picking up. Atsushi had a feeling this wasn't just a typical midwinter storm blowing in. The clouds didn't seem to be coming from anywhere in particular. They were simply coagulating over the world like some alchemist's noxious concoction.

"I hope everyone is okay," he murmured.

"I could check," said Ryuu, voice subdued. Atsushi knew how he felt. On the one hand, he desperately wanted to know that Kinshiro and the rest were all right. On the other hand, he was terrified that this might not be the case, and if that were true he wasn't sure he could bring himself to look.

"Better go ahead and look, then," said En reasonably. "Otherwise you'll just keep worrying about it."

Atsushi wasn't sure this was entirely correct - after all, he was perfectly prepared to worry about whatever it was he saw - but the temptation to see Kinshiro again won out.

"Please," he said.

Ryuu nodded. It was clear from his expression that he was not entirely sorry to have been talked into it. He beckoned his friends into the shadows behind a building where they would not be seen, and slipped a mirror out of his pocket. He breathed on it, and the glass rippled in response. En and Atsushi leaned in close for a better look.

For a moment, all any of them could see was a swirling cloud of dust. Then a wind dissipated it, and Atsushi drew in his breath at what he saw. The palace of the gods was half-collapsed, one side reduced to a heap of rubble. The a jagged path of destruction had been carved through the Heavenly City. Even as he watched, he saw Akoya, his thorned sword gripped in both hands, make a lunge at Gora, who deflected him easily. Akoya went sailing, slamming hard into the side of a heap of rubble. He lay dazed for a moment, and Gora approached him, axe held high. He brought it down with a powerful swing, but Akoya rolled quickly out of the way. The blade barely missed his head, and instead sheared off several inches of his glorious hair. He snarled and scrambled back to his feet. Gora stalked slowly towards him, eyes blazing, and Akoya braced himself for the next attack. Before Gora could make his move, a volley of golden arrows came from one side, spearing his torso and shoulders. Gora turned towards the attack and roared. He didn't seem to be much hurt, but he was clearly distracted by it. Akoya forgotten, he chased after his new target, and Akoya chased after him.

"Well, at least Akoya's still fighting mad," Ryuu observed. "I'm pretty sure he's invincible where people who mess with his hair are concerned."

"But it looks like things aren't going well," said Atsushi. "Our poor palace..."

"Then we don't have time to hang around," said Ryuu. He shoved the mirror roughly back into his pocket. "So where are we going? Did you guys get any ideas in there?"

"Just one," said En. "Someone mentioned that the local king has a pet wizard."

Ryuu looked around. "What does a wizard want with this dump?"

"Search me," said En. "But I did find out that he left on a trip a few days ago, and he's only just come back. Add that to the fact that we know Yumoto is in this city somewhere, and that it would take someone who knows something about magic to catch a god..."

"That sounds like our best lead," said Atsushi. He turned thoughtfully to look up the slope of the mountain. From where he stood, he could just see the tops of the castle towers, pennants flapping listlessly as the storm approached. "So we're going to have to get into the castle somehow."

"Without getting noticed," En agreed.

Ryou grinned. "Or all of us getting noticed."

Atsushi looked at him curiously. "What have you got in mind?"

Ryuu grinned more widely yet. "Well, he can only pay attention to one thing at a time..."

* * *

Yumoto was dissatisfied. Yes, he was out of the bottle, and that was good. He also had a steady supply of cake and cookies, since the wizard had left standing orders to supply him with more whenever he finished the most recent lot, and that was all right. The annoying wizard person had gone off somewhere, for which Yumoto was very grateful, but he'd left his quiet friend behind to keep an eye on things. Yumoto had spent the last few minutes trying without success to work out some probability of this man purposefully or accidentally letting him go, but so far, it hadn't worked. For one thing, being encircled by the Water of Life and a sorcerous circle threw him off his stride. For another thing, this wasn't the sort of man he found it easy to get his hooks into. All this Tazawa character seemed to want to do was sit in the corner and draw, placid and unmoving as a stone. Yumoto frowned at him. It was very hard to engineer an accident when the other party refused to cooperate.

"Why are you doing this, anyway?" asked Yumoto, just to break the silence. Being forced to sit still with nothing to watch or listen to but Tazawa sketching away was making him frantic.

"I dunno," said Tazawa, not looking up from his picture.

"Why are you doing something if you don't know why you're doing it?"

Tazawa looked up. "Is that even a real question?"

"It is if I say it is," said Yumoto. "Come on, you must be doing this for some reason. Everybody has a reason for doing things, even if it's just because they feel like it."

"Oh," said Tazawa. He thought it over for a few seconds. "Well, Kou said it was a good idea, and I believe him."

"Why?" Yumoto asked.

"Because he's my friend. He looks out for me," said Tazawa. "He's the only one who really cares. I don't really get what all this is about, but if he says it's for the best, I believe him."

"Have you ever thought he might be wrong?" Yumoto asked.

"Nah," said Tazawa. "He knows things. He's smart."

And that, his tone said, was definitely that. Yumoto stared at him, feeling somewhat impressed. He was usually better at persuading humans than this. He wasn't accustomed to being outranked by a mere human, but it was obvious that in a contest between him and Kou, Tazawa would pick the wizard every time. Yumoto was not sure whether to be impressed or dismayed by the man's loyalty.

"Are you sure he's smarter than you?" asked Yumoto, giving it his best try. "You might be pretty smart too."

Tazawa shook his head. "Nah. Not like he is. No one ever listens to me. He knows how to say things." He set down his pencil and leaned against the wall, staring dreamily up at the ceiling. "He's always doing things for me. He got me my own room, and brings me art supplies, and talks to people for me when I don't want to talk to them."

"He must be really important to you, huh?" said Yumoto softly.

Tazawa nodded wordlessly.

"That's how I am with my brother," said Yumoto. "He needs me. That's why I have to get out of here. Are you sure you can't let me go?"

"I don't know how," Tazawa pointed out.

"It'd be easy for you," said Yumoto persuasively. "Just wipe up a little of the water on the floor, that's all. Then I can go home, and I'll tell my brother not to be too angry at your friend, and everything will be okay. But if you don't let me go, my brother will be mad when he gets here, and something bad might happen to everybody. It would really be better if you let me go, see?"

Tazawa wavered. "Well..."

"Come on," Yumoto urged. "It'll be okay."

Tazawa looked at the circle, at his sketchpad, at the room in general, apparently searching for inspiration. He slowly reached for the circle.

 _Come on, come on,_ Yumoto pleaded silently.

The door banged open, and Kou swept in.

"You would not believe the day I'm having," said Kou to the room in general. "Everyone is all worked up over some stupid storm."

"Why?" asked Tazawa. His attention, now that Kou had arrived, was completely diverted from Yumoto.

"How should I know?" said Kou, waving a negligent hand. "These are the mountains. We have thunderstorms all the time. Then all of a sudden people see a few dark clouds and start shouting that there's war among the gods and it's the end of the world."

Yumoto gave him a flat look.

"Wow," he said. "I wonder why that is?"

* * *

Kinshiro was one of the oldest things in existence. In the beginning, when Chance and Fate had begun building a universe together, they had created things more or less at random, whenever it struck them that it might be nice to have one thing or another. It was only when they had looked back at the things they had created and realized that it was all just a bit, well, _disorganized_ , that they had wished that there was someone who would put it all into some kind of order for them. Their wishes had brought Aurite into being. It was he who had set the water apart from the earth and the air apart from both of them, who had arranged the stars and planets, who had found homes for all the birds and beasts. He'd been around longer than most mortals could comprehend, and yet somehow, in the last few decades, he'd really been feeling younger than he had since the beginning. He had his husband to love and friends like Arima and Akoya to keep him company, and life had seemed full of potential.

Never before now had he ever really felt his age.

"Heads up!" someone in the crowd - Kinshiro couldn't see who - shouted, and he dove out of the way just in time to avoid an axe whistling over his head. He watched it in shocked disapproval as it whizzed through the air and boomeranged around to land in Chaos's hands once again.

 _That is not aerodynamically possible,_ he thought sourly. Trust Chaos to bend the rules to favor himself.

Raising his bow, he fired off a volley of arrows, releasing a dozen of them in the time it took to draw a deep breath. They fell in a ring around Chaos, walling him off in a cage of golden light. He turned in frustrated circles, seeking a way out, and the other gods pressed closer, ready to strike again as soon as he broke free. That he would was only a matter of time. He'd _been_ breaking out over and over for hours now, and Kinshiro was beginning to feel the strain of it all. Gods did not tire easily, but he'd been pouring all his strength into this fight, and nothing he did more than momentarily fazed his creator. He honestly wasn't sure how much more he had left in him.

 _Hurry, Atsushi. We need help._

Chaos roared and tore his way through the ring of arrows, charging straight at Kinshiro. He tried to get out of the way, but the ground under his feet was strewn with debris, and he stumbled and pitched onto the ground. He scrambled to get back to his feet as Chaos advanced on him with axe upraised.

Something silvery shot through the air and struck Chaos on the side of the head. He reeled sideways, momentarily stunned. While he was still collecting his scattered wits, Arima dove in and snatched Kinshiro safely out of harm's way.

"Thanks," said Kinshiro breathlessly, as Arima set him back on his feet.

Arima calmly coiled his lash around one hand. "Just doing my job. Are you all right?"

"Fine. Just need to rest a moment," said Kinshiro. He tried to stand, staggered, and caught himself against Arima's arm.

"You need more than that." Arima sounded concerned. "You can barely keep your feet and he isn't even breathing hard."

Kinshiro shook him off. "That doesn't matter. We don't have to hurt him. We just have to delay him. Just a little longer. Our friends won't let us down."

"That's all very well," said Arima, "but you had best make sure you don't let them down by not being here when they get back. Let me protect you for a while."

"But..." Kinshiro began.

"No," said Arima, calmly but firmly. "I spent nearly an entire human lifetime obeying your every order, and my reward was to become a god. That means I get to decide what I want to do once in a while, and I say I am doing this."

He gave Kinshiro a gentle push, moving him into the shelter of a partially collapsed wall. Then he unwound his lash again and went bounding back into the fray. Kinshiro watched him go with a mix of concern and pride.

 _I didn't know how well I chose when I chose him. I hope I get a chance to tell him that._

The fight continued to rage through the city. Chaos was heavily outnumbered, but he didn't seem to notice or care. He batted attacks aside as if they were no more than leaves blown on the wind, he seized great chunks of stone and hurled them at his attackers, he laid about with his axe as if he intended to chop the world to bits. Kinshiro could only watch as his friends and allies struggled merely to keep Chaos distracted and off-balance. It was a losing battle. All they were doing was holding off the inevitable. Kinshiro could only hope they could hold it off long enough.

The forge god swung his hammer and struck Chaos hard in the side. He was flung off his feet and went rolling across the broken ground. A few people managed a ragged cheer, impressed that anyone had actually managed to land a solid hit. Chaos seemed momentarily stunned. He sat up and shook himself, looking around as if he had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there. For a moment, he looked so blank that Kinshiro wondered if that blow had somehow knocked him back to his senses.

Then Chaos gave a bellow of sheer frustrated rage. He raised his axe high and swung it, not at one of his attackers, but straight down, biting into the ground. There was a _crack_ as if all the thunder that had ever been had unleashed at once, and the ground shook hard enough to make windows break and walls crumble. Kinshiro watched in horror as a split opened up in the ground, and in that vast cleft he could see... clouds. There were clouds swirling around at the bottom of that chasm, and beneath the clouds he could see the hazy green and blue of the earth below. Chaos made a noise as if to say, "Wait, there's _more_?" Then he jumped through the gap and disappeared.

The foundation of the Heavenly City had been broken, and Chaos was loose on earth.


	6. Take a Chance

There was a crack of thunder loud enough to shake the world. Little dribblets of dust fell down from the eaves of the shabby building where En and his companions had taken shelter. He turned his dreamy eyes towards the sky and saw that the clouds were growing thicker and darker than ever. He saw one other thing, too, something that no mortal could have seen: a red-black streak flashing down from the highest point of the sky. The others saw it too, and made little noises of distress.

"Okay, guys," said Ryuu. "Looks like we're officially out of time."

En grimaced. He preferred to be taking things at his own pace; being pressed for time didn't agree with him. Being pressed for time when they barely had any sort of plan, and when failure could mean the end of everything, well...

"I'm off, then," he said, starting abruptly towards the wall of the castle. "I'll see you on the inside."

"Right," said Ryuu. "Come on, Atsushi - it won't look good for us if he finds Yumoto first, right?"

En heard the noises of the other two retreating behind him. He fought the urge to stop and watch them go. He knew his nature, and that was to hope that the two of them would get the job done without him, freeing him to sit back and watch the gathering clouds somewhere, or better yet, curl up and take a nap until all this unpleasantness was over.

 _I can do things when I put my mind to it,_ he told himself. _Even if I'm not the one to find Yumoto, I can at least help the other two._ Ryuu's idea was a good one. All he had to do was follow it. He tried to take comfort in the fact that at least someone else had done all the hard work of thinking for him.

The castle loomed higher and higher in front of him. He had to admit, he wasn't that impressed with what he saw. As the god of dreams, he wandered freely in and out of bedrooms belonging to peasants and princes alike, and he'd seen his share of palaces. He had a lot more worshipers among the aristocracy than most people cared to think about - after all, having responsibility for an entire kingdom was frequently enough to give just about anyone insomnia. Some of them had been a joy to visit.

Not this place. It looked like a box with towers. En frowned up at the blank walls, barely enlivened by a few narrow windows. The whole of it was built of some murky brown stone that made it look as run-down as the rest of the city, even though he could tell that it was in good repair.

 _If I were a wizard powerful enough to capture a god, I'd at least turn this into something a little more welcoming,_ En thought. He'd seen trader wagons that were more cheerful and homelike than this heap of stone. _Forget that - if I were a wizard powerful enough to capture a god, I'd go somewhere else._

Well, even if it wasn't welcoming, he was still getting inside - and not sneaking in the way he usually did. No, he was going to have to flex his powers a little. The thought of it almost made him smile. He might be notoriously opposed to anything resembling work, but the fact remained that some of his abilities were actually rather fun, and he didn't have a lot of opportunities to utilize this particular skill. That was probably for the best. If he never used this talent, it meant fewer people who knew he could do it. That meant fewer people would know he was the one causing the trouble, and fewer people who would realize what was happening.

The main door of the castle was closed. That was hardly surprising, considering what he suspected was hidden inside. If he'd had a treasure like that, he wouldn't have left the front door for just anyone to wander inside, either. He walked right up to the twenty-foot high wooden barricade and banged it with his fist. When that had no effect, he kicked it a few times.

"Go away!" shouted a voice inside. "The palace is closed today!"

"Is that so?" asked En pleasantly.

He kicked the door again. This time it opened, apparently of its own accord, much to the consternation of the guards inside. En smiled calmly at them as he sauntered inside. They were raising weapons - rickety crossbows, wobbly swords - and pointing them in his direction.

"I'm warning you," said the one with the most impressive helmet, "if you take one more step..."

"Out of curiosity," En said, "how many of you guys are on the castle guard? I see at least eight."

The captain frowned. "I don't see how that's any of your..."

"Never mind, then," said En. "I just wondered." He looked around at the assembled company, who looked more than a little nonplused by his apparent lack of fear. "I just want you guys to know this is nothing personal, okay?"

"What do you...?" the captain began.

En flung out his hands and let power roll over them all. He sensed it as a wash of blue light, lightly scented with the sleepy scents of vanilla and lavender and a hint of fresh water. He wasn't sure what it was like for the men he used it against. He only saw their faces go slack, saw the weapons slip from their suddenly limp hands. For a few seconds, they simply stood there, swaying gently on their feet.

Then pandemonium broke out. One of the men began dancing a lively step, smiling and chatting as if he promenaded with an invisible partner. One of them began running wildly around the room, apparently under the impression that he was flying a kite. One began shouting, issuing orders to a nonexistent army, while two more began fighting each other, swinging swords they no longer carried. Everywhere En looked, he saw men who had apparently lost their minds, which was more or less the case. He was, after all, the god of dreams. When he cared to, he could send those dreams even to those who were awake. These men were now beyond the reach of reality, and they wouldn't wake up until En felt like letting them.

 _Hope I don't forget,_ he mused, as he sauntered unmolested down the nearest hallway. _I'll have to get Kinshiro or someone to remind me later._

In the meantime, though, these soldiers would supply a needed source of cconfusion. No one would know why the palace guard had suddenly all gone insane, and hopefully that would be enough to keep the local wizard preoccupied.

And if it wasn't, well, En wasn't the only god in this building with the potential to cause trouble.

* * *

Ryuu had opted not to go in through the front door. There would be soldiers in there, hardened military men, presumably chosen for their ability to stay at their posts regardless of what temptations might come their way. Dealing with men like that took a brute force approach, and for all his sleepy ways, En was a better choice for that. Ryuu, by contrast, might have a flamboyant manner, but he's always worked best through subtlety. Most people never felt his influence creeping over them until the moment they realized they'd already come too far to turn back.

To that end, Ryuu let himself in through a side door that was probably used mostly by tradesmen dropping off deliveries. Ryuu was clearly not a tradesman, but that didn't stop him from simply sauntering into the kitchen and making himself at home.

"If you're looking for handouts, forget it," said a gray-haired matron who appeared to be the head cook. "We don't hand out charity here."

"Fine by me," said Ryuu, casually unslinging his lute. "I'm just looking for a place to get out of the rain. That storm out there looks like it's going to be a real monster."

The cook gave him a suspicious look. Ryuu simply flashed his winning smile at her. His smile had softened the hearts of tougher and more suspicious people than her - in fact, he'd married two of them. The cook harrumphed and turned her back on him.

"Fine," she said, "but don't think I won't notice if you start filching food."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. "In fact, how about I play you a tune to make the work go faster? You can't accuse me of stealing the cakes when both my hands are on the strings."

"Suit yourself," she said, and went back to slicing potatoes.

Ryuu just grinned even more widely and leaned against the wall. He played a few notes, making a show of tuning his instrument while he sized up the situation. There was plenty of hustle and bustle in there: the cook and all her helpers, a couple of pot boys scrubbing away at a mountain of crockery, a few gardener's boys running in and out at intervals carrying vegetables and herbs, even a butler inspecting the contents of the pantry. Good. The more people, the better.

Ryuu began a song. He played softly at first, barely audible above the din of the kitchen. It was a sprightly tune, just the right tempo for brisk work, and it wasn't long before a few members of his audience began humming along. That was when he started to sing. It wasn't the sort of bawdy tune he'd been playing in the pub, but it wasn't quite a love song, either. It was a song about the pleasure of running fingers through a lover's hair, of feeling the warmth of their hands and the softness of their lips, the longing to press close to them and feel the beat of their heart and the heat of their skin. It was, in short, a song of pure physical desire, and with Ryuu singing, it wasn't just a song. He really didn't like doing this sort of thing to people - he was, after all, a romantic at heart - but he told himself that desperate times called for desperate measures.

The young ones succumbed first. Within a few minutes, one of the pot-scrubbers caught the eye of one of the cook's helpers, and she boldly kissed him on the cheek. He grinned and responded by catching her wrists and returning the kiss full on the lips. One of the gardener's lads snaked an arm around the waist of the second pot scrubber, and two of the ladies who'd been stirring sauces abandoned their work to retreat into a shadowed corner. It wasn't long before the head cook and the butler were sneaking into the pantry together. A few slipped off alone, presumably intending to take care of their needs in private. A very few resisted, of course - Ryuu wasn't trying to force anyone, just giving them a powerful incentive - but those looked so embarrassed by what was going on that he doubted they were thinking much about what he was doing. Ryuu found himself wondering just how many of these pairings were the result of his magic, and how many had been smouldering unacknowledged until now. He wondered how they'd all explain it afterwards.

 _Probably decide the wizard did it,_ he thought, amused. It would be true, in a roundabout way. After all, he wouldn't have been doing this if a pesky wizard hadn't decided it would be fun to get on the bad side of the gods. Ryuu certainly wasn't worried about anyone blaming him. Even if he thought anyone was going to question the decisions of a god, they'd have a hard time proving that it had been him. Whether he was in disguise or not, humans tended to have a hard time remembering what he looked like. They all tended to see him as their idea of physical perfection, no matter what he'd looked like when they'd actually seen him. He guessed that at least some of the people in this room would swear he'd been a woman, and several more would remember him as being brawny and dark, probably with some stubble. Most likely they would all conclude he was some phantasm of magic, or possibly even a demon.

 _I'll check in on them when all this is over and smooth out all the awkwardness,_ he promised himself. He had a feeling that at least some of these random hookups would become permanent with just a little prodding on his part. That would be nice, if something good came out of all this commotion.

In the meantime, though, he had a lot more work to do. Still playing his song, he eased his way out of the kitchen and went looking for more audiences.

* * *

Arima struggled to pull himself back to his feet. If he'd known that being a god was going to be like this, perhaps he might not have jumped so readily to the task.

That wasn't true, of course. He knew that he'd have willingly signed up to spend the rest of time living and serving among the gods, even if it meant fighting for his life. He was used to that. He'd been a priest of Aurite, after all, and that frequently meant dishing out a dose of law and order in a very direct and sometimes violent fashion. No, the only thing he regretted was that it looked like he might not make it through an entire year before his time among the gods was over.

Slowly, painfully, he hauled himself first to his knees, then staggered to his feet. That last blow hadn't managed to bisect him the way it had been intended to, but he'd taken a pretty solid hit and been flung into the side of a small house. He'd survived; the house hadn't fared so well. Already the human population of this small town had already dispersed - fleeing for the hills or barricading themselves in basements where they hoped the battle would pass over them. Arima wasn't so sure about that. In the state he was in, Chaos didn't seem to care what he attacked - living beings, trees, buildings, stones, even the earth, which he opened up in great rents with every swing of his axe.

The only thing, as far as Arima could tell, that was working in the gods' favor was that Chaos was still only one person. He was powerful and implacable, but he couldn't be everywhere at once, which meant that the gods who were weary or injured could fall back and let fresher comrades take a turn at the battle. They still weren't enough to stop him, not by a long shot, but they were slowing him down. Time - that was all they needed. Everyone kept telling each other that: they just had to slow him down long enough to find and free Yumoto, and then everything would be all right.

Arima wasn't so sure. To him, this looked like a losing battle. By this point, everyone was tired, and many of them were hurt. They were running out of fresh fighters, and Chaos looked no worse off than he'd been when he'd started. Arima was worried about Kinshiro, too. As the embodiment of order, he was best equipped to battle Chaos, and he was pushing himself too hard. He should have been saving himself as a last resort, not throwing himself to the front over and over like this. He wasn't letting himself have enough time to rest, and while he was trying to keep the others from noticing, Arima was quite certain that he'd managed to hurt himself at least once. Arima was doing his best to take up as much of the slack as he could, but he was sure it wasn't going to be enough.

There was a loud _thump_ as the war god managed a lucky hit, striking Chaos squarely in the chest with his claymore and sending him staggering. Arima saw his opening and quickly lashed his chain around Chaos's ankle. His timing was perfect, and the god overbalanced and fell hard onto his back.

Aurite shouted, "Everyone, close in!" and all those who were still battle-worthy quickly moved to obey.

Chaos seemed, for the first time, unnerved. He looked around, uncomprehending, at the mass of people surrounding him, all brandishing weapons or glowing with holy energy as they prepared to do whatever it took to keep him down. He looked down at his axe, which had stayed in his hands despite his fall. He looked around again. Arima wondered what was going through his mind. Was he even thinking at all anymore? Somehow he found that blank, unknowing stare on the face of the man who had always seemed to have all the answers in the past was the most frightening thing of all.

He got an answer to his questions a moment later. Chaos's face hardened, folding into a scowl. With a bellow, he raised one hand, and the earth shook in response. Arima cried out and looked around wildly, trying to work out what was going on.

Then a hand shot up out of the ground and grabbed onto his ankle. He kicked frantically at it and managed to shake it loose, but it was quickly followed by another and then another. Soon they covered the earth like a swath of strange flowers. They were followed by arms, then heads and shoulders, and an army of creatures like lumpy mud dolls lumbered into view.

Arima swallowed hard. There were a lot of myths about how the universe would end, but they all agreed on how it had begun: with Chaos, with endless destruction and purposeless creation. That had been a long time ago, and perhaps even the only person who had been there to see it had needed some time to remember what it was like - a little jog to the memory, so to speak. Something like looking around and realizing he was outnumbered.

Chaos had just remembered how to create.

* * *

Atsuhi did not like this plan.

Well, he approved of it in principle. It was fairly sound: that he and his two friends would each enter the castle at different points, and then they would create as much obviously magical commotion as they could, in hopes that their friend the wizard would be called upon to deal with it, leaving his prize unguarded for one of them to find and rescue. It was a very good plan, as these things went.

There was just one problem: Atsushi didn't know how to cause any commotions. Just because he was a god didn't mean he could go around doing whatever he pleased. He had to work within his sphere if he wanted to do godly things, and "mercy and hospitality" wasn't the sort of thing that lent itself to causing a ruckus. He was, in fact, more inclined to _stop_ trouble than start it.

Still, he had to try. He found a door that led through a weedy lawn had probably been intended to be a pleasure garden but had never really been finished, and made his way into the halls of the castle. There didn't seem to be a lot of people around.

 _Maybe if I'm very quiet, no one will notice I'm here,_ he thought, as he sidled along through one of the smaller corridors. There didn't seem to be a lot of people in this castle. He didn't know much about how castles were run, but he'd always had the general impression that they were supposed to be bustling with servants, guards, courtiers, and assorted nobles. Either En and Ryuu had already dealt with all of the potential opposition, or this place was long past its prime. Probably, he thought, as he surveyed his dingy surroundings, a bit of both. That made it all the more strange that this wizard they were dealing with would have chosen to settle here. Surely there had to be _somewhere_ in the world more congenial than this.

Something about that thought tickled his mind. A wizard who wanted power so badly that he was willing to kidnap a god to get it wouldn't stay in a place like this for long, not if he could help it, and this one obviously could. He had to have some other reason, a reason that had nothing to do with power. Just like there had to be a reason his book had given him its own particular spin on the story of the wishing fish...

"Halt, in the name of the king!"

Atsushi froze. A guard had come up behind him, and had apparently recognized him as a stranger. Well, of course he had, Atsushi thought bitterly. With so few people about, everyone in this building must have known everyone by sight, right down to the people who came to the door selling ribbons. Atsushi obediently froze.

"Can we talk about this?" he asked. "I'm really not here to hurt anyone..."

There was a crack of thunder outside. Rain began coming down in sheets.

"You can explain it to the captain," said the soldier. He sounded annoyed; Atsushi guessed that he'd already seen whatever it was Ryuu and En had been up to, and was looking for someone to blame for it.

"I really don't have time," said Atsushi, even though he knew nobody was listening. Four or five other men had already come tromping into the room, weapons drawn and faces set in scowls.

"You had better make time," the first guard said. "Otherwise, you're in for a lot of trouble. Come along quietly now, and maybe I'll show you some mercy."

Atsushi blinked at him. "You're... going to show _me_... mercy."

"What, am I speaking some foreign language or something?" the guard snapped. "Move it along, buddy, before things get ugly."

"Before you decide not to show me any mercy, is that it?" asked Atsushi. He was suddenly very annoyed, and also scornfully amused. He didn't have to put up with this. Just because he was the god of mercy didn't mean he had to be a _pushover_. He drew _Inquiry_ from his pocket and flipped it open, and was unsurprised to see words spooling across its pages.

"I'm sure you know all about mercy," he said calmly. "Just like how you showed mercy to Widow Kaneda last winter when she was late with her taxes? Or you," he continued, pointing to another guard. "You were the one who beat that beggar man, just because you happened to bump into him in the street. And you over there - you told the greengrocer's wife that you'd have the king take away her husband's store if she wouldn't go to bed with you. You there? You arrested an innocent traveler because you were under pressure to solve a crime and didn't have any other leads. And _you_..." He wheeled back to face the leader, who was now pale and backing away. "You've been bullying the king's youngest grandson, haven't you? You told him that drawing pictures is no occupation for a man, and it was a good thing he'll never be king, and that he's lucky he has a wizard to protect him because he'd never manage anything on his own..."

 _Wait, a wizard? This wizard is protecting the prince? Why would a wizard so depraved that he's willing to kidnap Chance himself be worried about protecting a lesser prince who isn't even in line for the throne?_

The guards were staring at him with horrified expressions.

"Who are you?" one of them blurted. "How do you know all these things?"

"I am Epinard," said Atsushi, as loftily as he could, "and I've taken this form because I have business with your wizard. Either you take me to him right now, or when it's your turn to be judged, I'll make it a point to be elsewhere that day and leave it up to my husband how much mercy you get."

That got an immediate response. Everyone knew that mercy was something Aurite left to his consort. When he was left to his own devices, there would be no forgiveness or second chances for anyone.

"Right this way, my lord," said the guard, and began leading him down the hallway. Atsushi did his best not to look surprised that his ploy had worked.

 _Maybe I'm getting the hang of this god business, after all._

* * *

Akoya clutched at his shoulder and gritted his teeth against the pain. He hadn't been in pain since before he'd become a god, and he'd very nearly forgotten what it was like. He wasn't appreciating the reminder. A demon had told him once that while gods didn't die, they could be hurt to the point where they preferred to dissolve back into the aether rather than continue to exist as sensible beings. He was beginning to understand what that meant. He could feel himself going fuzzy around the edges, losing his grip on where he ended and the rest of the world began.

 _Forget that! I'm not letting some cretin with an axe get the better of me!_ He was far too important to let himself be wiped out by something like this.

He raised his sword with his good arm and propelled himself back into the battle more or less by sheer force of will. He hated to admit it, but the fight had stopped going their way a long time ago. Chaos's monsters had an unfinished look about them, and they certainly weren't very bright, but they were as relentless as their creator and just as impervious to pain. Unless you smashed them to bits, they would keep right on attacking again and again. It took five or six of them to overpower a single god, but when more of them kept sprouting every minute...

 _That's not even taking into account what else he might dream up._ If Chaos were to suddenly decide that what he needed was a flight of fire-breathing dragons, this fight was over. He shuddered and tried not to think about that.

Then the ground shuddered again, and he began berating himself for letting his imagination run rampant that way. Of course the universe would have to take notice. He took a breath and steeled himself for the inevitable.

But what emerged from the earth wasn't more monsters. It was a column of armed soldiers. In front of the line was a woman in silver armor, riding a ghostly white horse and carrying a scythe that glinted even under the cloudy sky. Beside her on one hand was a man on a black horse with glowing red eyes and hooves that struck sparks. His armor was so black it baffled the eye, and he carried a spiked whip that dripped flames. On her other side was a man on a golden horse, wearing gold-washed armor that shone mirror bright. He brandished a golden wand in one hand, and wherever he pointed it, the earth itself rose up to crush one of the monsters or skewer them on spikes of stone. Akoya smiled. He might not have seen that exact armor before, but he knew full well who was wearing it. As the golden horse passed by him, the rider reached down and pulled Akoya up behind him.

"Hello, treasure," said Io calmly, as he swept his wand in front of him and crushed a swathe of monsters. "Did you miss me?"

Akoya beamed. "You know I did, darling." A monster came at their flank, and Akoya beheaded it with a flick of his sword. "What a pity Ryuu couldn't be here. We could have had a nice party."

"We'll invite him next time," said Io, as he continued to clear a path for his regiment.

And it was a regiment. He hadn't only brought the lady of the Peaceful Dead and the lord of the Accursed Dead. Behind them were a small army of gods, the dark and secretive denizens of the underworld, all the guides and guardians who protected the places where the dead were laid to rest. Akoya had seen most of them before, but never all in one place, and never out in the open like this. Seeing them all now, armed and armored and ready for battle, gave him a little shiver, and he was friends with most of them. A human seeing them all probably would have run screaming. It wasn't just the underworld gods, either. It appeared that several of those who had taken refuge with Io had found their courage and come to join the fight at last. Even more than that, there were several hundred human ghosts - famous warriors of the past who had come out of retirement to enjoy one last great battle. They couldn't stand against Chaos, of course, but they were more than happy to mow down mud monsters. Their arrival gave the weary and battered gods a chance to catch their collective breath while the newcomers took over. Akoya himself was pleased to have someone protecting him for a moment. He gladly would have kissed Io right now if he hadn't been wearing full armor with a faceplate.

"Where did all these people come from?" Akoya asked, watching the mobs of warriors streaming up from out of the earth. "I really wasn't expecting any help. I thought everyone else would just stay with you where it was safe."

"Most of them did stay," said Io. "The ones who were afraid, I hid in my deepest treasure vaults, behind several layers of thick steel doors. I imagine even Chaos will have a hard time hacking through all that. But I had a feeling that once they got over their shock, at least a few of them would start feeling ashamed of themselves and want to come back and help. Then it occurred to me that there was a lot of other help available, so I started rounding them up."

"You're as efficient as ever, my dear," said Akoya. He flicked his sword out and neatly bisected one of the mud monsters. Violence was not usually part of his job, but he had to admit that watching these monsters fall neatly in half at each swing of his sword was very satisfying.

"I do try," said Io modestly.

 _If Ryuu were here, he'd be making a remark about how he'd like to be rewarded for his efforts,_ Akoya thought. The idea gave him a slight pang. There were times when Ryuu's constant flirtation could be wearing, just as Io's relentless practicality could sometimes be maddening, but it was _consistent_. He missed it now that it wasn't there.

 _What's taking him so long? Why isn't he here? If someone has hurt him..._

He shook himself hard. No, he would not think like that. Focus on the task at hand. A monster came lumbering up to him, and he stabbed at its eyes. This one _had_ eyes, not just vague indentations in its lump of a head. It must have seen him coming, because it ducked out of the way and managed to grab the blade of Akoya's sword. Akoya bore down on it, and the blade sliced cleanly through its hand and down its arm to the elbow as easily as if he'd been cutting a stick of butter.

"They're getting smarter," he observed. He slashed off the creature's head and watched it fall. "Though not by very much."

"He's getting better at making them," said Io, with a nod towards the knot of fighting that marked Chaos's position. "I'm afraid I've only bought us a temporary reprieve."

He was right. The two of them continued to smash, slash, and stab their way through the ever-increasing mob of monsters. One creature, brighter than the rest, managed to work out that attacking the horse was a possibility, and it crushed the creature's skull with one huge fist. It fell soundlessly and dissolved into golden sand, while Io and Akoya did their best to land without hurting themselves. They rolled to their feet and positioned themselves back-to-back, where they battered furiously at anything that came near.

"Any idea what we're going to do next?" Akoya asked over the din.

"Nothing springs to mind!" Io shouted back.

Somewhere off to his right, Akoya glimpsed Aurite leaping onto what remained of a temple to the harvest goddess.

"Push him this way!" Aurite shouted, his voice carrying over the commotion. "Avoiding damage to human habitation is no longer an option, so there's no point in trying to contain him. Just push him where we want him to go!"

"And where is that?" Akoya shouted back irritably.

He struck down a mud monster, and three more immediately sprang up to avenge their fallen comrade. In a flash, Kinshiro had bounded across the battlefield to join his friends. A flurry of arrows dropped the three monsters in the time it took to blink, and Akoya watched with interest as they dissolved into heaps of rubble.

"If that wizard wants Fate's attention, we'll give it to him," said Kinshiro grimly. "We're taking this fight to Pineridge."

* * *

Atsushi pressed his ear to the door of the wizard's chamber and listened. There did not seem to be any sounds of pleading or agony going on in there, only the occasional quiet murmur of calm voices. He hoped that was a good sign. He'd dismissed his phalanx of soldiers with orders to go and sin no more, and now he was wondering if that had really been a good idea. He didn't really want innocents - well, people who were innocent of this specific crime - mixed up in this, but it would have been nice to have some backup. He suspected that this wizard would be less likely to do anything drastic if people were watching him.

 _Well, here goes nothing,_ he told himself, and pushed open the door.

What he saw was not what he'd been expecting to see. The room he stepped into was not the stygian lair of an evil wizard, but a comfortable-looking sitting room, fairly ordinary except in its obvious luxury and the fact that there was a complex sorcerous circle set into the floor. Just the sight of it went through Atsushi's head like a toothache. At one corner of the room sat a lanky young man with a sketchbook on his lap, and inside the circle was Yumoto. He was striking a dramatic pose.

"Okay, that's good," said the stranger enthusiastically. "But could you raise your arm a little higher? No, more to the front. That's it, perfect! Hold it!"

Atsushi cleared his throat. Yumoto whipped around, and his expression brightened until he positively glowed.

"Atsushi! I knew you'd come!" he exclaimed. He tried to run towards him, stopping only at the last instant before he could cross the border of the circle. He yelped.

The man with the sketchbook gave Atsushi an aggrieved look.

"You spoiled my picture," he complained.

Atsushi merely looked at him and stifled a sigh. This, he was certain, was not his wizard. Gods were not, when it came down to it, very much more intelligent than human beings. What they were was immortal, which meant they tended to have very much more and broader experience than humans, and Atsushi had spent the last seventy-odd years or so judging human beings. He knew this one's type. This was one of his least favorite kinds of human beings, in a pulling-out-hair-in-frustration kind of way. He was quite certain that this young man had never done anything wrong in his life, but in the way a sword or an arrow had never done anything wrong. A sword didn't choose to kill anyone; it just sat there idly while someone else picked it up and swung it. This was a man who hadn't a drop of malice or ambition in him, and was therefore dangerous, because he trusted everyone and did whatever they told him, because they must know better than he did, mustn't they? How did you judge the guilt of a man who was helping to destroy the universe because he really didn't know any better?

"You must be the prince," he said.

"Guess so," the man mumbled. The animation had gone out of him. Apparently anything that didn't involve his pictures didn't command much interest.

"This is Tazawa. He's nice," said Yumoto. "Don't be mad at him. This isn't his fault. It's the other one who..." He waved vaguely at the unpleasant marks on the floor.

"So where is he?" Atsushi asked.

"There was stuff happening," Tazawa volunteered, "so he went to look."

Atsushi mentally translated: the wizard had got wind of whatever it was En and Ryuu were up to, and had gone to try to fix it before the whole castle descended into bedlam. Well, good luck with that, considering the circumstances.

"So can I finish my picture?" the prince continued. "I might never get another chance to draw a god."

He held up his sketch pad in mute testimonial. Atsushi was forced to admit that it was a very good likeness. It definitely captured the sense of energy and impending excitement that surrounded Yumoto.

"No," he said. "Maybe later. Right now, I need to take my friend back."

"But you can't!" Tazawa protested. "Kou needs him."

"Well, I need him more," said Atsushi implacably. He turned to Yumoto. "How do we get you out of there?"

"Somebody has to break the line," said Yumoto. He pointed to an uneven trail of something black that glittered oddly, forming a loose circle on the floor. "I can't do it, though. I can't even touch it."

Atsushi rounded on Tazawa. "You do it, then. Let him go!"

"No," said Tazawa flatly.

"You have to," Atsushi insisted. "Everyone's lives are depending on this."

"I can't," said Tazawa. He stood up, casting his book aside. "Kou would never forgive me if I did. You can't make me!"

With that, he stormed out of the room, shooting Atsushi betrayed looks, as if suggesting going against Kou's will was the ultimate blasphemy.

 _He's got more spirit than I thought,_ Atsushi mused. Too bad it was so utterly misplaced. Turning back to Yumoto, he said, "Now what?"

"I don't know," said Yumoto. "I thought you did."

"Could we get someone else to break the line?" Atsushi asked.

"Maybe," said Yumoto, "if you could find someone. But I think you scared all the guards away, and the servants kind of aren't thinking straight right now, you know, because of what Ryuu and En did. You'd have to find them and make them let somebody go, but they're kind of busy dealing with the wizard right now."

Atsushi didn't ask how Yumoto knew that. For all his childish ways, he was still one of the rulers of the universe. Even semi-incapacitated as he was now, he was bound to have a few tricks up his sleeves. Instead, Atsushi focused his attention on the darkly glowing line that was keeping Yumoto captive. It hurt even to look at the thing. He didn't want to imagine what touching it would feel like.

"Could _I_ break it?" he asked.

Yumoto shrugged. "I don't know."

Atsushi looked at him thoughtfully. He'd been expecting a more yes-or-no answer.

"What do you _think_ would happen if I tried?" he persisted.

"Well, if a god touches it without Fate nearby to hold him together," said Yumoto, "he'd probably just dissolve back into the universe. I mean, gods aren't really people. They're just sort of ideas that got the idea they were people and started doing people things." He twiddled his fingers, looking uncertain if he was explaining himself correctly. "It's kind of like raindrops rolling down a windowpane, you know? When two of them touch, they stop being two raindrops and become one raindrop. That's what happens when gods touch the Water of Life. They stop being themselves and become part of the water instead."

Well, that sounded uncomfortably definite. "But?"

"But you're not just a god. You're still a little bit human," said Yumoto. "There aren't a lot of gods made out of people, and even Akoya's only a couple hundred years old. We haven't learned everything about how they're different yet, if they even are different. You might be. I don't know."

"So there's a chance I might be able to break the line safely?" Atsushi asked.

"You might," said Yumoto. "Or you might be able to do it but lose your immortality. Or you could die. Or something else might happen. I don't know. Big Brother might know, but..."

"But he's not here right now," said Atsushi. He frowned. One chance he might survive with no harm done. One chance he might survive but at an immense cost. One chance for the unknown. One chance he'd be wiped out so thoroughly that he wouldn't even have a soul left to send to the underworld.

Outside, thunder crashed. The earth trembled under their feet, making the furniture briefly dance in place. Several small knicknacks fell off various shelves, and a picture dropped off the wall. Time, Atsushi decided, was running out.

 _Three out of four isn't bad odds,_ he told himself grimly.

Before he could lose his nerve, he knelt at the edge of the circle, put out a hand, and touched his fingers to the dark water.

He screamed.


	7. Altered Fate

Kou was annoyed. Things were not going the way he had planned. He had not, for one thing, expected matters to take this long. He had imagined that as soon as Fate got the message that his brother had been taken from him, he would react fairly quickly. Surely he wanted his brother back, right? And surely it was not such a difficult thing to rearrange someone's fate. He did it all the time. That was his _job_. So why wasn't he doing anything?

And now there was this. Just a few minutes ago, someone had come pounding on Kou's door saying that everyone in the castle was going crazy. It had taken Kou a little while to sort out what the woman was on about, but after she'd dragged him downstairs and shown him a parlormaid and a valet openly fornicating in the lesser audience chamber and a guardsman who seemed convinced that he was a bat and was trying to hang upside-down in one of the closets, he'd started to get the idea.

 _And they expect me to do something about it._ That was what was really bothering him. This was obviously magic at work. He was the magician. He should do something to put it right. Only... only this was big-time magic, and he was only a small-time conjurer. He'd gone out of his way to make sure that everyone knew he was only a small-time conjurer. He made fireworks and illusions to entertain the king; he didn't go in for wholesale enchantments. Only now it was obvious that someone else _did_ , and someone needed to fix it, and he was the wizard so fixing it was his job. Saying that he didn't even begin to know how to do this would not get him anywhere. So now he was stomping through the halls of the castle, feeling his temper rising, trying to decide on a course of action that wouldn't end with the people of the castle tying him to the stake and burning him.

He was still unhappily considering the likelihood of this when he rounded a corner and walked straight into someone. He stumbled backwards, and his spectacles fell off his nose to clatter against the floor.

"What where you're going!" he snapped, dropping to all fours to scrabble for his missing glasses.

A foot came down on his hand. Not hard, but firmly enough to keep his hand pinned in place. Kou made a noise of outrage and tried to pull free.

"Hi there," said a too-cheerful voice. "You look like just the guy we wanted to see."

When Kou looked up in an instinctive urge to seek the source of the voice, someone shoved his glasses back on his nose. The blurs in front of him resolved themselves into a tall man in dusty blue robes and a smaller man with vivid pink hair. The redhead was grinning at him in a way that made him even more uncomfortable than the taller man's heavy-lidded stare.

"Who are you people?" he demanded. "Is all this chaos your fault?"

"Funny you should use that word," said the redhead. His smile was showing way too many teeth for Kou's comfort. He frowned.

"You two aren't wizards, are you?" he asked.

"Not as such," said the taller man.

"We're better than wizards," said his companion. "Nice to meet you, buddy. I'm Vesta, and this is Cerulean. We're gods."

Kou stared at them. For a moment, his brain told him, no, these weren't gods, these were just ordinary men - just look at them in their tattered clothes and muddy shoes. Then the world seemed to shimmer, and when it evened out, the people in front of him were... different. He couldn't have said exactly how. Their clothes were better, that was obvious - the one was wearing a sort of toga that just barely covered him decently, and the other was now dressed in a deep blue velvet robe that shimmered with something like stardust, but those were only superficial details. What caught his attention was something more ephemeral, something about the too-perfect texture of their skin, perhaps, or the way their eyes seemed to focus on him differently than human eyes did. Kou swallowed hard. This was not a possibility he had considered.

"Ah... can I help you?" he asked, trying to sound as if this were all terribly ordinary.

"Oh, yeah, you bet," said Vesta. "You can tell me where to find our friend Scarlet."

"I don't know what you're talking about." The words came out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about them. Most of his life experience told him that when in doubt, he should deny everything. It was only on reflection that it occurred to him that this tactic might not work with entities that could read minds.

"You do," said Cerulean. "We know he's in this castle somewhere."

"So either you can tell us where he is," said Vesta cheerfully, "or we can do this the hard way. Do you want to do this the hard way? Because I had to walk here in the snow and my consort is busy fighting a war and I don't even know if he's alive or not and I am just not having fun today. And did I mention that Cerulean gets cranky when he's not allowed to sleep? Because that's a thing that happens."

Kou made a sound rather like "erk". He wished this god would stop smiling at him.

"This doesn't concern you," he managed. "This is between me and Fate."

"Oh, you think so, huh?" said Vesta.

"Look, all I want is a different fate! Is that so much to ask?" Kou protested.

Cerulean gave him a look. "Can we take him outside?"

"Let's," Vesta agreed.

Kou looked from one to the other in surprise. "Huh? Why do you want to..."

Both of them grabbed him at the same time. He felt a surge of power, as he did when he summoned his small demons, but much stronger. It left his skin tingling and made his throat go tight, and for a moment, he was too busy trying to get his heart rate to settle to realize what was going on.

Then the spots in his vision cleared, and he realized he was standing on the rampart of the castle. A cold wind slapped his face and made his wizardly robe flap around him until he thought he might have blown away like a kite if Vesta and Cerulean hadn't still been holding on to him. The sky was almost black with clouds, though it was still hours from sunset, and lightning danced across the horizon and filled the air with thunder.

"Do you know what this is?" Cerulean asked.

Kou managed to free an arm enough to adjust his glasses. "Um... a thunderstorm?"

"War," said Cerulean grimly. "This is war, and you caused it. Do you understand that?"

"You... you mean..." Kou stammered, "you mean that nonsense about a war among the gods was true? But why? I don't understand..."

"That's right, you don't," said Vesta. "You decided to play around with stuff you didn't understand, and this is what happened. Fate _needs_ his brother. Without Chance to keep him on the straight and narrow, he's reverted to his primal state. Look."

He reached into a fold of his robe and took out a mirror. A small portion of Kou's mind gibbered at him that there was no way even a hand mirror could have fit under that gauzy bit of nothing that Vesta was wearing, but there it was, glinting in his hand. Vesta thrust it forward, and Kou could only stare as the surface rippled. It showed him a vision of someone he recognized as Fate, but only barely. Where had the smiling, good-humored man gone? This was a terror, and he was mowing his way through a flock of armed warriors as if they were no more dangerous than stalks of grass.

"What in the world...?" he blurted.

Vesta tucked the mirror out of sight again. "He's not Fate anymore, not without Chance to stop him from slipping. He's become Chaos. He's not in control of himself anymore, and he's destroying everything in his path. He _can't_ give you what you want. The only thing he can think about right now is ripping the universe apart so he can start over from scratch. The other gods are trying to keep him contained, but they can't last but so long. If we don't get Chance back fast, well..."

"Assuming even getting him back will make things better," said Cerulean grimly. "We don't know if it will help. It's not like this has ever happened before. You might have caused the end of everything. Is that the fate you wanted?"

"No!" Kou protested. "I just didn't want to cause the end of the kingdom. I wanted this place to get better, not be destroyed because of me!"

There was a crash and a crunch somewhere off in the distance. Kou raised his eyes to the horizon. He couldn't see clearly through the gloom, but there was a definite flash of armor and the sound of distant fighting being carried on the wind.

"Better act fast, then," said Vesta. "Here comes the end of the world."

* * *

Atsushi was in pain. He was freezing and burning all at once, a bone-deep ache that shot up his arm and into his chest and sunk its claws into his heart. He could feel himself being unmade by it. In the face of this sensation, he knew that he had been deluding himself. He wasn't a god. He wasn't powerful. He wasn't anybody, and if he'd only admit that and stop trying to think of himself as a person, this pain would go away. It would be so easy to just melt back into the darkness, to let himself stop being a thing that could think and see and feel, and just subside gently into the minds of humanity where he belonged. "Epinard" had been a pleasant dream, but he was only a dream, and it was time for that dream to end. Already, those memories were slipping away: the Palace of the Gods, the Heavenly City, that strange sky full of eternally shifting lights, the hall where he'd sat in judgement, his cozy living quarters, the great hall where he and his fellow gods had enjoyed companionable breakfasts and elaborate feasts... all of it was fading, becoming unreal. The more he forgot, the less the pain bothered him. If he could just forget it all, he would be fine. He'd feel better if he forgot about the gods, about Arima, and En, and Kinshiro...

A vision floated up into his mind, of Kinshiro standing in the old Cloverleaf Inn, with a bucket at his side and a rag in his hand. He was cleaning the windows. The back of his shirt was damp with sweat and clinging to his skin, and Atsushi could see the way his muscles shifted as he scrubbed at the glass. Water trickled down the panes, and the sun cast rippling shadows on his skin and made his silver hair gleam. Atsushi had known in that moment that he wanted this man to be more than just a friend to him. That hadn't changed. He wanted to go home to Kinshiro - to his husband, his partner, his dear friend. And Arima and En - they had been his friends even before he'd become a god. That friendship was real, and he was not going to forget it. Epinard might or might not have been a dream, but Atsushi knew that _he_ was real, and he was not letting some stupid _puddle_ take everything away from him.

With a tremendous effort, he moved his hand. It felt like his fingers were a million miles away, as if they weighed fifty pounds each, but slowly, they moved. He was aware of something cold under his fingertips, and felt it smear across the rough stone of the floor.

There was a feeling as though a rope he'd been pulling with all his strength had suddenly broken, and Atsushi found himself falling over backwards on the floor. It hurt where his head struck the stones, but it was an ordinary sort of hurt and faded quickly, without any sense that he was in danger of losing himself. He sat up, blinking and pushing at his glasses. Silly, really - he didn't need them to see anymore, but he was used to having them so he wore them anyway. Well, unless he was doing something athletic...

His rather fuzzy thoughts were pulled into sharp focus as someone flung themselves against him and swept him into a vigorous hug.

"You did it!" Yumoto caroled. "I knew you could do it! I just knew it!"

"I guess I did," said Atsushi fuzzily. "Are you okay?" And then, less urgently, "Am I okay? I mean, am I still...?"

Yumoto sat up and gave him a considering look.

"You look okay to me," he said. "That was really brave, what you did. I didn't actually know if it would work or not. I'm going to have to tell brother about this... Oh!" He got up suddenly, seeming to go from crouching to standing without passing any of the points in the middle, and looked around wildly. "Where is he? I need to find him!"

"En will know where he is," said Atsushi. "Come on, let's go."

They raced out of the room, with Yumoto in the lead and Atsushi following somewhat uncertainly behind him. He was still feeling shaky from his encounter with the Water of Life, and while he wasn't certain whether Yumoto knew where he was going or was just running randomly, he didn't feel up to making any decisions for himself. It was all he could do to keep up with Yumoto's considerable speed. They zigzagged around corners, along corridors, and up stairs, until at last they emerged on the castle ramparts. En and Ryuu were there, along with a small bespectacled man who Atsushi guessed was the wizard Kou. Such a small person to have caused so much trouble...

"I've got him!" Atsushi shouted. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the storm.

Three heads whipped around. The expressions on all of them showed relief, but one of them showed a definite overlay of despair. Whatever this wizard had been trying to accomplish, he must have realized it wasn't going to happen. He slumped dejectedly in his captors' grip. Yumoto ignored the wizard entirely, instead making a beeline towards En.

"Where's my brother?" he asked urgently. "I need to get back to him."

En pointed towards the horizon. "That way."

Yumoto nodded, his normally innocent face suffused with determination. "Come on, then."

"What about this?" asked Vesta, giving the wizard a little shake.

"Worry about him later," Atsushi advised. "Gora needs us now." At the looks his friends were giving him, he said, "Don't worry. He can't get away from _me_. One way or another, I'll get him."

The wizard gulped audibly. Ryuu grinned.

"And here I thought you were soft," he said. "All right, let's get outta this dump."

He released the wizard a little more forcefully than was necessary, making him stagger forwards and nearly fall over the edge of the wall. Kou gripped the wall with hands that were white and shaking and stared up at them in a panic, as if he expected Atsushi to strike him down where he stood. Everyone ignored him. They knew Atsushi was right: there were more important things to think about.

In a flash, all four of them were vaulting over the edge of the wall and vanishing in blurs of light and flame. There was no uncertainty now. The battle, at this point, was very hard to miss.

Atsushi rematerialized in a flash of green light and found Yumoto already there waiting for him - or rather, already there and barging his way through the crowds, ignoring gods, soldiers, and monsters alike. An instant later, En and Ryuu appeared, and all three ran after Yumoto.

It wasn't hard to guess where Chaos was, at this range. He was the figure at the center of the most intense fighting. Atsushi was forced to duck and dodge around both the monsters and his own confused allies, but somehow Yumoto managed to be everywhere a flung fist or a swung sword wasn't. He moved in a straight line, unmolested and unstoppable, for the heart of the chaos.

Yumoto's brother wasn't looking so well. His clothes were stained and tattered, his hair was disheveled and full of dust and gore, and while he didn't seem to be injured, his face had a strained expression that suggested he was on the verge of a why-won't-they-just- _stop_ form of panic. He did not understand why the world was attacking him and couldn't figure out how to make it stop, and it was beginning to frighten him.

"Big brother!" Yumoto shouted, and flung himself into the fray.

Chaos swung his axe reflexively towards him, and... stopped. Stared. Swayed, a little drunkenly, on his feet. Yumoto smiled at him. Just that, but it was a smile so bright that it cut through the darkness of the clouds and stilled the wind. All around him, the battle slowed, becoming a slowly expanding ring of silence.

"It's okay," said Yumoto gently. "I know you're scared. I'm sorry I went away, but I'm back now, and it's all right. You don't have to fight anymore. I'll take care of you."

He held his arms wide. For a moment, all was perfect stillness. Then the axe slipped from Chaos's hand to clatter to the snowy ground. He took a few stumbling steps forward, and Yumoto enfolded him in a tight embrace. As Chaos put his arms around Yumoto in turn, the darkness leached from his clothes, becoming clean and white again, and a smile spread across his face.

All around them, there was the whisper of monsters falling away into dust, and a long drawn-out sigh of relief. Somehow, they had survived the day.

Chaos was gone.

* * *

Ryuu was usually the last person to object to a touching reunion - he was the god of love, after all, and familial love was still love - but right now he had more important things on his mind. The moment he'd been certain that everything was going to come out right, he'd broken away from his friends and gone to search the battlefield for someone a little more near and dear to him.

After a few minutes of frantic searching and worrying, he'd sighted Akoya leaning against the remains of a wall. Even Ryuu, who'd known Akoya intimately for several human lifetimes, almost didn't recognize him. His formerly long hair had been hacked roughly away, his gorgeous clothes were in tatters, and he was thoroughly begrimed with mud and dried ichor. Nevertheless, he raised his head and smiled when he saw Ryuu approaching.

"Took you long enough," he croaked.

Ryuu grinned back, feeling the weight of the world fall from his shoulders.

"You know me," he said. "Sometimes I like to play hard to get."

"Liar," said Akoya fondly. "You're the easiest mark in the universe." He ran a hand through his chopped-off locks. "I'm sorry you had to see me like this. I must look frightful."

"Trust me," said Ryuu,"I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life. The only way you could look better is if Io was with you."

"I'm here." Io scrambled over a heap of debris and came to join him. He looked almost as battered as Akoya did; he'd managed to lose his helmet and one shoulder plate during the battle, and the rest of his armor was badly scuffed and dented. There was a cut over one eyebrow still trickling golden ichor. He didn't seem to have noticed it.

Ryuu blinked. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be underground protecting people?"

"I decided I would better serve the cause if I was up here protecting people," Io replied.

Akoya smiled. "He was very heroic."

"Sorry I missed it," said Ryuu. "You'll have to show me in the mirror, now that everything's settled down." He looked at them both in sudden concern. "You _are_ okay, aren't you?"

"Cut and bruised, but I'll live," said Io.

"Just tired," said Akoya.

He leaned against Ryuu's shoulder, letting himself slump. He really must be tired, Ryuu thought fondly. It was very rare that Akoya let himself be anything but graceful. Ryuu tucked one arm around him and held out his other, inviting Io to copy Akoya's example. Io smiled and let himself be included in the embrace.

"Oh!" said Ryuu, remembering suddenly. "Here, Io. I got you something while I was out."

He fished in his pockets and came up with the handful of silver and copper coins he'd collected in the pub, and dutifully passed them to Io. Io's tired eyes lit at the sight.

"You're the best husband," he said contentedly.

"You didn't bring me anything," Akoya said.

"Next time, I promise," said Ryuu.

"I'll hold you to that," said Akoya, and settled himself more comfortably into Ryuu's embrace.

Ryuu closed his eyes and smiled contentedly. Now everything was just as it should be.

He didn't know how long he just stood there, luxuriating in the closeness of his consorts and the knowledge that everything was back to normal, when he was brought back to reality by the arrival of Atsushi. He'd apparently had his own reunion, and was now half-carrying an exhausted Kinshiro, who still held his head up proudly despite his obvious tiredness and pain. Arima and En followed at a respectful distance.

"Are you three done fooling around?" was Kinshiro's typically acerbic comment.

Ryuu grinned. "Glad to see you're not dead either. Come on, what's the problem? We're allowed to celebrate a little."

"It's not over," said Kinshiro grimly. "Atsushi says that wizard is still out there. He needs dealing with."

Akoya gave Ryuu an irritated look. "You let the little weasel responsible for this get away?"

"Well, excuse me if we thought it was more important to stop this mess first," said Ryuu, gesturing at the wreckage of what had previously been a small town.

"Point granted," said Io, "but I think now Kinshiro is probably right - we should be giving some thought to tracking him down."

"I can find him," said Kinshiro grimly. "I have a good nose for people who have eluded their just punishment."

There was a stir nearby, and Ryuu looked past Kinshiro to see Gora walking slowly towards them, with Yumoto tagging along at his side.

"If you're going, I'm going too," he said. His voice was tired but calm, underscored with grim determination. "Thank you for all you've done today. Now it's my turn to do something useful."

Ryuu gave him an interested look. "You planning on changing this guy's fate, then?"

"Something like that," said Gora.

Ryuu grinned. "Well, all right, then. Let's go and catch ourselves a wizard."

* * *

Kou was somewhere beyond thinking. He'd spent the last few minutes running around in a blind panic, one second convinced that he had no choice but to flee for his life, the next minute certain that he had no other option than to stand and take his punishment. He'd turned his room upside-down trying to pack things for a trip he wasn't sure he was really going to take. Where could he go when the gods themselves were against him? That was, of course, assuming that the world wasn't coming to an end anyway, in which case hadn't he better stay here? Part of him was saying that if he was going to die anyway, he might as well do it in his familiar, comfortable rooms, possibly while he was in the process of getting too drunk to notice if the world was ending or not. He could invite Tazawa up to join him. He could say they were drowning their sorrows after their plans had failed to come to fruition. Tazawa would believe it. He wouldn't have to know they were about to die.

But no. There were some depths even he wasn't going to sink to, and if the gods were about to come and turn him into a stinkbug for interfering with them, he wasn't going to let Tazawa get caught in the middle of it. He wouldn't have any idea what was going on, and Kou wasn't willing to take his chances on whether or not the gods would be so irritated that they would take out their feelings on anyone who happened to be standing nearby.

So he had done what came naturally to him: he'd run. Even now, he was stumbling through the wilderness beyond the city, carrying a bag from which the occasional scrap of paper or stray sock slipped free. He didn't know where he was going. Odds were good that he would get lost in the mountains and freeze to death. At the moment, he was too far gone to really care.

 _Maybe I should have just let those gods-damned dogs get me and been done with it._ A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside of him. He stumbled on a root, fell face-down in a thin patch of snow, hauled himself to his feet, and kept going.

He'd been going just long enough to wonder if maybe the gods had decided that he wasn't worth punishing, or whether they were all tired from their war and had gone home, or if he'd just inhaled too many potion fumes and had a strange hallucination, when a tree suddenly fell across his path. He yelped and jumped backwards.

Strong hands closed on his shoulders.

"I've got him," said a cheerful and unfamiliar voice.

"Good," said someone else coldly. "Just hold on to him."

Kou twisted and looked up. He was no expert on gods, but he had been around enough to recognize most of the major ones, at least when they weren't trying to disguise themselves. This one had a deceptively gentle face, and wore the pale gray and olive green robes that he associated with Argent, god of duty and right hand man to Aurite. Which would, he guessed, make that cold voice...

A slender, fair-haired man dressed in somber black, with only a hint of gold trim to show his rank, stepped out of a shadow that couldn't have possibly hidden him. Kou swallowed hard. Aurite was looking a bit scuffed around the edges, from which Kou divined that he was probably not in the best of moods, and he was notoriously short-tempered to begin with.

Close behind Aurite came someone who was presumably his consort Epinard - Kou had a vague recollection of seeing him on the castle wall. Just how many people had he managed to set off today? Too many, apparently. One by one, other figures began to surround him: Vesta, now flanked by his two consorts, then Cerulean, Chance, and then Fate himself, carrying his golden axe and looking unutterably weary. Kou's first thought on seeing him was, _I guess the world isn't coming to an end after all._ Then he looked more closely, and he felt a peculiar pang. When he'd first seen Fate, the man had been happy, relaxed, laughing, full of love for his brother and joy in being alive. Now he looked tired and haunted. Something terrible had happened to him - something he hadn't known could happen and had never hoped would happen, and now he would have to live the rest of eternity knowing it might happen again, and might not end so happily next time.

 _And it was me. I did that to him._ All this time, Kou had been telling himself that his actions were justified. He hadn't really been doing anything wrong, his intentions were good, and it would all turn out all right in the end, so where was the harm? Now he was seeing it, and for the first time, he felt real regret. He couldn't take away that unsettling knowledge. Not even Fate could make all this un-happen to himself.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I really am. Please don't hurt me."

Fate regarded him gravely. "Do you know what you've done?"

"I... think so," he said weakly. "I really screwed up, didn't I?"

"You most certainly did," said Pearlite from the sidelines. "For one thing, just _look_ at the state of my hair."

"Shh!" Vesta hissed.

Kou stared, distracted momentarily from his own problems by this brief glimpse into divine domestic life. Fate cleared his throat.

"There's been a lot of damage done because of you," he said. "More importantly, you know things you have no business knowing. You're too determined and too lacking in morals to be allowed to go on existing."

Kou blanched. "But I didn't mean for it to happen like this! I just wanted to change my fate! I wanted things to get better!"

"Then you should have found another way," said Cerulean. "That's why I send the new year dreams - so people know what they're doing wrong and they can change things."

"You didn't want to change your fate," said Fate sternly. "What you wanted was to do the same actions and get a different outcome. That's not how this world works."

"You could have found another way," said Epinard softly. There was regret in his voice, and Kou read the message in it: _I'm sorry, but I can't get you out of this one._

What Kou wanted to say was, _You don't understand! I had good reasons! I thought I was doing the right thing!_ , but he knew it was no use. His fate was, quite literally, staring him in the eye.

"Get it over with, then," he said sullenly.

He drew himself up to his fullest height, which unfortunately wasn't very impressive, since both Fate himself and the god holding Kou in place were both significantly taller than him. As Fate stepped closer to him, hefting his axe in both hands, Kou's last thought was, _At least Tazawa isn't here to see this. Sorry, Tazawa. Looks like you're on your own now..._

There was a commotion in the underbrush. Various deities exclaimed in surprise and consternation as a gangly figure blundered into the clearing carrying a sword. He'd clearly taken it from someone else - it was too heavy for him, and he was having trouble holding it up - but he still bravely took an awkward stance between Kou and Fate.

"Hey!" Kou exclaimed in outrage. "What are you doing? Get out of the way!"

Tazawa didn't say anything. He had never been the kind to waste words. He simply stood, staring defiantly at Fate. He didn't even look scared. He clearly had no idea what on earth was going on, but he knew that a big man with an axe was coming at his friend, and he wasn't going to stand for it. Kou braced himself, not wanting to see his only friend in the world be cut down for getting in the way but unable to turn his gaze.

He didn't expect to see Fate stop in his tracks, slowly lower his axe to his side, and say, "Well. This is interesting."

Behind him, Vesta brightened, like a man who had just found a gold coin in the street.

"Well, I'll be switched," he said. "So _that's_ what I was picking up."

Fate regarded Tazawa thoughtfully.

"So," he said, "you'll stand up for this man, even after all he's done?"

"I don't know what he's done," said Tazawa simply. "But he's my friend and I won't let you hurt him."

"Is he, I wonder?" said Fate. "He's not a good man. He's caused a lot of trouble and damage that could have been avoided if he'd been a little less selfish."

"I wasn't being selfish!" Kou objected. Then, when he received several withering glares for that statement, he amended, "Okay, I was, but I did it for Tazawa, too."

"Oh, really?" asked Aurite. "And what exactly did you do?"

"I was going to make him king!" said Kou. "He deserves it more than any of the others do. All of them just wanted to leave the kingdom and go find somewhere more interesting to be, but he actually loves this kingdom. He'd be a good king."

"Especially because you'd be here telling him what to do," said Aurite shrewdly.

"Yes!" said Kou. "He's not good at thinking for himself. He needs someone to take care of him. He could be king and I'd handle all the hard stuff and everything would be okay!"

"And you'd be enjoying the perks of shared kingship, yes?" Aurite persisted.

"Well, yes," said Kou, "but that's fair, isn't it? He'd _want_ me to share."

"I get it now," said Epinard softly. "The story of the wishing fish, and the fisherman who kept wishing for things for his wife, things she didn't even want..."

Kou turned to stare at him. "What? Fisherman? What are you talking about?"

"So what I'm getting," said Fate, with the air of someone hauling a strayed conversation back on track by brute strength alone, "is that you did all this because you wanted to make you friend happy. Did you ever ask him if this is what he wanted?"

Kou blinked. "Who wouldn't want to be king?"

"Well, let's ask him," said Fate. He turned to Tazawa. "Tell me, do you have any interest in being king?"

"Not really," Tazawa admitted. "But if he wants to be king, I wouldn't really mind. He'd be better at it anyway."

"What are you talking about?" Kou said. "With just a little help, you could be a great king! A whole lot better than your grandfather, that's for sure."

Fate turned to give Kou a thoughtful look. "You think so, do you?"

Kou saw a hint of something that looked almost like approval, or at least interest, in the god's eyes. He nodded eagerly.

"He would be," said Kou. "He's a good guy. He's never angry or jealous or greedy or cruel or anything. He just wants everyone to be happy. He's the nicest person I know..."

Fate turned to Tazawa. "And you? Are you willing to stand by him and share his fate, whatever I decide it's going to be?"

Tazawa nodded. "I told you, he's my friend. He always looks out for me. He's smart and always knows what to do. I wouldn't know what to do with myself without him around."

"I see," said Fate. He looked, oddly enough, at Vesta. "And what do you think?"

"I think there's potential," he said. "Be a shame to waste it."

"That's what I thought you'd say," said Fate. He turned back to Kou and Tazawa. "You two stand next to each other."

Tazawa obediently moved. Kou just stood there, feeling apprehensive.

"Uh... what are you going to do?" he asked.

"I told you," he said. "You know too much. You can't be allowed to go on as you are. I'm going to do what you wanted me to do: I'm going to change your fate."

Kou blinked. "You're going to what?"

"Change your fate," the god repeated, "by reweaving your past. I'm going to make it so he was never a prince and you were never a wizard. You won't remember any of this because it will never have happened to you. What you make of yourselves after that... well, we'll just have to find out, won't we?"

Tazawa looked slightly panicked. "But what about...?"

"Don't worry. Vesta will help me make sure you two stay together," said Fate.

He hadn't consulted Vesta about this, Kou noticed, but Vesta didn't seem to mind. He stepped forward and stood beside Fate. Fate glanced around the clearing.

"I'm going to need a few more hands," he said. "Yumoto, you take that corner. Akoya, I want you over there. That's good. All right, now watch carefully and follow my lead..."

He moved his hand, and Kou saw the world change. Suddenly, everything he'd taken to be real looked somehow insubstantial, a veneer over what was actually real, and what was actually real was... strings. There were millions of them, as fine as spider webs, connecting him to everything else in the world. He watched as Fate reached up and gently, so very gently, began cutting a few. Some of them he passed to his helpers, some he reattached somewhere else, and a few he simply cut free to float away on the wind. With every cut, he felt a little lighter, a little less _there_. He knew he was being remade into something else. He wondered if he would like whatever it was going to be. He was sorry he was going to be forgetting so many things, but at least he wouldn't be going to wherever he was going alone. He cast a wan smile towards Tazawa.

"See you on the other side, old pal," he said.

Tazawa didn't say anything - he rarely did - but the smile he flashed back wasn't wan at all. It occurred to Kou all of a sudden that Vesta had said there was potential between them. If the god of love said something like that, what did it mean? It wasn't an idea he'd ever really considered before, but...

 _Yeah. Wherever we're going, things are going to be all right._

Then the last cord was cut, and that was all he knew.

* * *

It had taken a while to get everything else sorted out after that. After the dust had settled, nearly everyone who had participated in the battle with Chaos had more or less collapsed from exhaustion, and Atsushi had found himself running the Heavenly City himself while Kinshiro rested from his exertions. When he had a moment to think about it, Atsushi felt that this was probably for the best. Kinshiro short of rest was not always the easiest person to deal with, and everyone was still a little skittish. Entities who accepted their immortality as a matter of course did not adjust well to learning how close to death they had come. He'd spent the better part of three days checking on people, smoothing ruffled feathers, and reassuring everyone that everything was all right now.

One of the calls he'd made was on Ryuu, who was currently staying in Akoya's apartment, his own rooms having been damaged in the fight to restrain Chaos. Ryuu had come through the situation better than most, but he'd been kept very busy trying to look after his two consorts. They'd been exhausted by their efforts at fighting, and had slept the better part of a day afterwards. Once Akoya woke up and Ryuu judged him well enough for company, he'd been installed in his sitting room to be fussed over by a few of his favorite attendants. Io, though, was not well suited to idleness, and Ryuu had been forced to do everything short of sit on him to keep him in bed and resting. The parade of visitors who had finally started showing up had been a relief to Ryuu, because they kept Io from getting bored and trying to sneak off to _do_ things.

And there were visitors. Atsushi had been both impressed and pleased by the number of people who seemed to want to drop in and pay their respects. In the past, he'd gotten the impression that other gods didn't take these three very seriously. After all, Akoya was only the god of beauty, and spent most of his free time primping and preening, or pursuing what some would call rather effete hobbies like needlepoint. Ryuu seemed to be considered rather crass in his interests - after all, they seemed to think, how could they take someone seriously when all he seemed to think about was sex? As for Io, he had long been looked down upon for his materialistic mindset. What did gods care about money?

But all that had changed now. Ryuu had been one of the ones who'd rescued Chance, which made him a hero. Akoya, who'd always looked so soft and delicate, had fought the most powerful being in the universe and stood up to him like a hardened warrior. Io had impressed everyone, both with his generosity in granting shelter to those who couldn't fight, and in his bravery and foresight in rallying his army. The three of them were getting real respect now, and they were clearly thriving on it.

As for En, he was being spoken well of, too. Atsushi had heard people talking about him. They weren't paying visits, though. En had told Atsushi in confidence that he didn't feel like dealing with a lot of accolades, and had slipped off to hide in the bathhouse with Gora and Yumoto. Atsushi thought it was probably best that way. If En had been forced to deal with a constant stream of well-wishers when he was trying to get some well-earned rest, he'd probably do something that would cost him all his newfound respect. Atsushi was usually the most easygoing of people, and even he had felt the need to accept an invitation to come join En and the others for a long relaxing soak a few times, during those few days.

One of the other errands he'd run while he was visiting Earth was to check in on the towns that had been damaged while the battle with Chaos had raged over them. Unfortunately, the gods hadn't been able to prevent a lot of property damage. Fortunately, humanity had seen what was coming and ducked for cover, so there hadn't been any human casualties, but a lot of buildings had been damaged or leveled outright. Atsushi had felt bad about this, but one afternoon when he'd been at the bathhouse unwinding, he'd seen Gora go out for a while carrying his axe and acting secretive. On a hunch, Atsushi had stopped by one of the damaged towns, and had been interested to see that quite a lot of freshly-hewn stone and prime lumber had been piled neatly in what remained of the village square, ready to be worked into new houses and shops. The villagers had been very pleased about this.

In particular, Atsushi noticed two young men buzzing around the crowd, asking excited questions. Wanting a better view of this interesting development, Atsushi had taken on mortal guise and sidled over to chat with them.

"Hey, what are you two up to?" he asked.

The young man who had once been a wizard turned and smiled brilliantly at him.

"Ah, I see you hadn't heard of my new innovation!" he said.

"No, I haven't," Atsushi agreed. "Tell me about it."

"Well, permit me to introduce myself," said the young man grandly. "I am Kou, and this is my partner, Tazawa. We're the new breed of town crier! My idea is, I have a small printing press, and every day, I go out and collect all the news, and then I print it up and distribute it! Tazawa here, he helps me out by making the illustrations and working the machinery. It will change the way people get information. No more relying on gossip and hearsay - just good solid facts, carefully recorded by yours truly! It's brilliant, don't you think?"

Atsushi smiled. "I think it sounds like a fabulous idea."

He'd left the townspeople to their rebuilding, setting out instead to have a look at something a little more immediately relevant to him: the rebuilding of the Heavenly City. Once everyone was more or less up and about again, Gora and Yumoto had gathered a selection of helpers and led them in repairing the damage done to the palace and its environs. Together, Gora and Yumoto pulled together the raw material needed to patch the rift in the city's foundations and begin piecing the buildings back together. Kinshiro followed behind them, organizing and arranging until everything was in its proper place. Akoya came last, polishing everything and adding his own special touch, until everything was even more beautiful than it had been when the city was new. Atsushi got the feeling that this was the most fun Akoya had had in years.

But now all the hard work was over, and there was nothing left to do but celebrate. Atsushi sat at his place near the head of the table, admiring the preparations for the party. The city's largest park had been hung with lights and lined with tables, tables, and yet more tables, all of them piled high with food. They actually overflowed the park and spilled out into the street. The center of the park was just now filled with gods, all of them dressed in their best. Everyone, in fact, from the lowest attendant to the most powerful deity, was gathered there - all but the handful who were seated as guests of honor: Gora, Yumoto, Ryuu, En, Atsushi, and Kinshiro as master of ceremonies. When everyone seemed to be there and waiting for their signal, Kinshiro stood and regarded the crowd.

"Friends," he said, "we gather tonight to honor acts of heroism on the part of many of our fellows. We gather to celebrate our survival. We gather in hope that nothing like this will ever happen to us again. On this occasion, I would like to make some announcements. First, I would like to honor in particular the bravery of our fellows of the underworld. In the past, the gods of the underworld and the gods of the heavens have kept their affairs separate. I would like this to change. From this day forward, let it be known that any of the gods of the underworld are welcome in the Heavenly City whenever they care to honor us with their presence."

The audience applauded heartily.

"Secondly, I would like to particularly draw attention to the three who were responsible for rescuing Chance and restoring peace to the world," Kinshiro continued. "Tonight, we formally recognize En, god of dreams, Ryuu, god of love, and Atsushi, god of mercy for their courage and resourcefulness."

This time there was even more applause. Atsushi felt himself blushing.

"I didn't do anything much," said Atsushi, when Kinshiro had finally finished his speech and sat down. "You all did most of the hard work."

"You put your hand in the Water of Life, knowing it could kill you, to save all of us," said Kinshiro. "That's heroic enough for me. But Atsushi, if you ever do anything that stupid again..."

"I won't, I won't!" Atsushi promised, laughing.

The party had begun, suddenly and earnestly, as soon as Kinshiro had finished speaking. The city rang with music, and everyone was having a good time eating, drinking, and dancing with all the enthusiasm of people who'd had a good fright and come through it, and who didn't need to fear having hangovers in the morning. Ryuu and a few of the other gods who were handy with flames had collaborated to create a fireworks display, and the sky overhead was filled with blossoms of colored fire. At ground level, Atsushi could see Gora chatting happily with the god of woodcutters about proper swing technique, while Yumoto alternated between dancing and raiding the buffet tables for refreshments. Akoya, restored to his proper appearance - even his hair was back to normal - caught Io's hand, and the two of them produced pairs of white wings and went to dance among the twinkling fireworks. Off in a corner, En was being offered a plate of his favorite onsen manjuu by the goddess of historians, while the god of artists poured him a glass of wine. He was currently in the midst of one of his lectures on nothing in particular and apparently enjoying himself immensely. Not far away, Atsushi could see Arima sipping carefully at a glass of white wine, as if he thought it would explode. He hadn't touched alcohol since the day he'd gone into Kinshiro's service as a priest, but he was a god now, and he was beginning to learn that meant he could make his own rules. Even Kinshiro had agreed that there was a time and a place for everything, and if ever there was a night to cut loose, this was it.

"Everyone looks like they're having a good time," Atsushi observed, as he watched the dancing couples wheel by.

"Yes," said Kinshiro, with a notable lack of interest. "You know, I really was afraid you weren't going to come back."

"I was afraid for you too," said Atsushi quietly. "Let's not do anything like this again, all right?"

"Agreed," said Kinshiro. He looked speculatively at his consort. "Atsushi, forgive me for saying this, but... do we really need to be at this party?"

Atsushi laughed. He reached out to take Kinshiro by the hand and begin leading him towards one of the exits to the park, back towards the safety of the palace and their own comfortable, private bedroom.

"You know," he said, "I think we can afford to sit this one out."


End file.
